


The Stray

by Kittywu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drama, M/M, Mind Reading, Multi, Polyamory, Sometimes Fluff, pharmaceutical experiments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywu/pseuds/Kittywu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Eren, you don’t find a human like you find a stray cat! Who is he? And why the fuck did you take him with you?”<br/>Eren was actually just looking for a shelter from the sudden shower. But he finds a half dead and afraid boy who later chooses to be called Armin. And from then on, things get complicated and weird because Armin didn't only lose his memory, but he gained the ability to hear people's thoughts. He is charming, he is enchanting and he is about to turn the life of Eren and his flatmate Jean upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: White

**Author's Note:**

> The prologue and a few sequences in the following chapters are written in a second person narrator. The rest is a third person narrator.  
> This thing might be a bit disturbing. I don't know.  
> Also, this was not planned.

White. The smell of antiseptics and latex gloves. Nothing but cold tiles. You lay on that bed, it is hard and the sheets are thin. You wait for something to happen, for someone to come. You hope that you could just wake up, that everything is just a horrific nightmare. And so you turn and turn in your bed but you can’t get up because there is a handcuff that restrains you to the bed. You hope for someone, for a hero to come and rescue you. But the only people you see are the ones with those white coats. You never see their faces because they wear white masks the entire time. So you picture them like absurd monsters with giant holes for a mouth and claws under those pale yellow gloves. Maybe they will eat you alive.

A loud beeping noise, you hear the door opening. This time it is three of those white coated monsters. They walk up to you, one is taking notes, another is taking out something that looks like a pen. He grips your face violently, and from that small pen, he emits a blinding beam of light directly in your eyes, first the right, then the left. They exchange comments that you don’t understand, you just understand that they are about you. The third is taking out some sort of syringe, holding it into the cold white light of the room, and clicks his finger against the plastic. The one who had the lamp now takes your arm with a firm grip, takes out some kind of cuff and wraps it around your arm. It gets tight, it hurts. You are scared. You don’t want them to do this. You don’t want this anymore. You never wanted it.

You find it hard to breathe, all you can get are flat and insufficient gasps of air. Your heart is racing. You wish you could just throw up. The lights are so bright but your vision is so blurry, so blurry. The room is as white as it could be but you see hardly more than black. You are afraid. The smell of the antiseptic that they spray on your arm stings in your nose and makes you panic even more. You feel the tears rolling down your cheeks and you scream. They don’t even bother, the one who had been preparing your arm just tightens his grip. You cry loudly, you scream. You beg them to stop. You are desperate but they don’t care. The needle pierces the skin in your arm, it is already blue from all the needles of the past. You scream because it hurts. It burns in your vein, like they injected you lava. Maybe they are injecting you poison. Maybe you will finally die now. The pain spreads to your entire body and you scream. You kick your legs but they just leave the room without a word. You don’t want this. You want it to stop.

And then everything turns white.


	2. Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it will take a little bit of time to establish the erejearmin (basically the entire second chapter), you'll have to view this thing as an exposition. Actually, an exposition with some erejean.

Sometimes Eren Jaeger hoped that something special would happen. Something exciting. Something unexpected. And as he walked home and his wine red chucks got soaking wet in the puddles on the streets, humming the melody of a Rise Against song, he hoped that today wouldn’t be that day. He was in a good mood, his exam had gone well and maybe he would go to the movies tonight, who knew. And this special something that he sometimes prayed for would just change his mood, change his pace and make things complicated. Things went well right now.

So he tried his best to walk past every opportunity to start the first chapter of his very own special story. There weren’t many to be precise, actually there were none, like usually. And even though he didn’t want to find them, he got a little sad.

He was only two blocks away from home when it started to rain. He cursed the weather and he cursed himself for not bringing an umbrella. “Great, now Jean will get all self-satisfied and smirk ‘I told you so’”, he grumbled between gritted teeth. He looked around for any kind of shelter. The entrance of Helmholtz Street 19 looked promising. But as he reached the entrance, his navy blue sweater was already dripping and water was running down his face from his now straggly hair. His heart was still pounding from the sprint and he leaned his back onto the cold brick wall. He hoped that the shower would stop soon, the wet clothes felt gross and sticky and cold. And he wanted to be home, get changed and maybe get some food. There were things waiting for him to do, things he had to do and things he wanted to do. He started to shiver slightly. “Shitty weather”, he hissed.

He didn’t realize that he wasn’t alone in this entrance.

The other one was sitting further inside, in the dark. And he was merely more than a shadow. His knees were pulled in close, his thin arms gripping them tightly. The white shirt he was wearing was completely soaked and stuck to his tiny body. The rain had made it transparent, transparent like his skin. And you could see every blood vessel, every bone sticking out as if they were trying to pierce through the skin that was covering them, trying to break the thin layer that restricted them. His big blue eyes looked empty and feverish. His face was flushed. He shivered.

Eren wouldn’t have realized him if the boy hadn’t started to cough violently. He looked around and guessed that the little lump on the cold hard ground was probably human and the source of the noise. Cramped in a dark corner, Eren had to take out his phone to see him clearly.   
“Please, don’t! Go away! Don’t hurt me”, the boy cried with a thin voice, pulling up his shoulders and shielding his eyes with his bony hands. Eren had no idea what he should do. But as he examined the boy closer he figured that he couldn’t leave him like that. It didn’t take a doctor’s son to get to that conclusion.   
“Calm down. I’m not gonna hurt you. Everything will be ok”, he said slowly in the calmest voice he could manage, averting the bright flashlight of his phone.   
But the boy didn’t take his hands down, he averted his face and continued to cry. “I don’t want this anymore please. Please stop. Just don’t hurt me anymore.” He sounded desperate and broken, his voice was hoarse.   
“Hey, shh, everything will be alright”, he said and crouched down to the boy’s eye level. He wanted to stroke his shoulder to show him that he had no malicious intentions, but the boy flinched and cried even more desperately. “I’m not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”, he asked but he didn’t get a response. The other just coughed again. He didn’t sound good at all, his coughs sounded painful and violent, and Eren was afraid that he would start to cough out blood any second. Without a second thought, he took of his sweater, wrung it out to get is as dry as possible and draped it over the shivering boy. “Damn, you’re barely dressed and you’re completely soaked. No wonder you’re sick as fuck”, he said and smiled. The boy slowly let his hands sink down and gripped the sweater to pull it tighter. His huge blue eyes now looked directly at Eren. It was a blank expression. Eren couldn’t help but to wonder what had happened to that boy. He looked miserable. Eren reached his hand out once again and this time, the boy let him stroke his shoulder. “Shit, you’re hot! Look, we need to get you somewhere inside. I’m not gonna hurt you. I don’t want to do you any harm. I just want to help you, ok?”

Eren looked in the direction of the entrance and realized that the shower that had brought him here earlier had finally stopped. “My apartment is really close. Do you think you can walk?” Eren offered him his hand, trying to show him that he should try to get up. The boy looked at him with his huge feverish eyes, took Eren’s hand and tried to pull himself up. The touch felt shocking – even though he was boiling hot, the touch felt lifeless, like touching a corpse. Eren made out a faint and light pulse at his wrist but that was the only thing that felt normal. The skin was dry and paper thin. His knees were all wobbly and weak, and he got short of breath just by trying to get up. And as he finally had pulled himself up onto his feet, his whole weight onto Eren, he fainted. Luckily, he fell to the front and it was easy for Eren to catch him and so he held him, trapped between his chest and his arms. “OK, you’re not fit to walk. Well, that leaves me no options. I’ll have to carry you home.”

Since the other wasn’t conscious, he couldn’t get him onto his back. Carrying him princess style, Eren walked back home, the boy in his arms moaning from time to time.

 

●

“Eren, would you mind to explain why there is someone sleeping on our couch? No wait, would you mind to explain who is sleeping on our couch first?” Jean didn’t even bother to say hello. The moment he had opened the door, the moment he smelled the scent of chicken noodle soup and the moment he realized that wrapped into two blankets, there was someone on their couch, he had decided that there were more important things than a casual greeting. And judging by the straw blond hair of that someone in their flat, he didn’t have the slightest clue who it was. And that was troublesome.   
“I found him. I sent you a text”, Eren said while sticking his head through the doorframe that lead to their tiny kitchen. Or at least what they called kitchen. It was basically just a fridge, a few counters, a sink, two stove tops, a microwave and a coffee machine. And it was too cramped for two people to be inside at the same time.   
“Yeah, when you said you brought someone home I actually expected… you know… _someone_.“ Not that Jean minded that there was no someone over but just this whoever was sleeping there, but he still minded the general situation. “And you found him? What do you mean with that?”

Eren walked out of the kitchen, leaning onto the doorframe and glancing at the boy on the couch. “I forgot my umbrella and when I waited for the rain to stop in that entrance, I found him. And he needed help, so I brought him home.”  
“Eren, you don’t find a human like you find a stray cat! Who is he? And why the fuck did you take him with you?”, Jean was getting mildly angry, but only because he was tired of Eren taking his habit of picking up stray cats or dogs up the next level.   
“I told you, I found him there. He was soaked and feverish so I had to get him somewhere inside. He passed out so I got him blankets and dry clothes and then I went out to get some soup for him.”   
“So basically, you’ve let a homeless in. Ok, Eren, when he wakes up, he needs to go.”

Eren walked a few steps closer to Jean and looked him directly in the eye. “Jean, you don’t understand. You haven’t seen him. He looked like he was about to die. He was frightened. He was just wearing some kind of hospital night shirt and it was completely wet. He would have died if I had left him there.”   
Jean now moved closer to the couch and gave the boy a closer look himself. His face was flushed from the fever, drops of sweat were glistening on his forehead. He touched his face and flinched. “Jesus, he’s burning!” and then Jean realized that the collarbones of the boy were a bit too prominent and that he generally looked terribly fragile, like touching him too firmly would lead to breaking him. “What the heck happened to him?”, Jean asked.   
Eren nodded and came closer to the couch. “I have no idea. But probably bad things. Judging by the way he was scared of me when I tried to talk to him.”   
“I’d be scared of you as well if you came up to me all of the sudden”, Jean said and elbowed him into the side.  
“Jean. He started to cry shit like ‘please don’t hurt me anymore’ and he looked like he was hiding from something. I don’t know who hurt him and what they did to him but just take a look at that boy. That’s no joke.”  
“Didn’t you say he wore like a hospital night shirt? Maybe he was in a hospital because he’s that miserable.”  
“He was in a state like he had just escape Satan himself.”   
“Damn. We should take him to the hospital nonetheless when he wakes up. I don’t think that sleep and some chicken noodle soup will be enough to fix him.”

It started to rain again outside. The drops were hammering against the windows while both Eren and Jean looked at the boy on the couch, sitting on the rug on the floor because there was no other seat left in their living room.   
“Did you get enough soup for all three of us?”, Jean asked after a while.   
“Probably. But we still have some leftover pasta in the fridge if that’s not enough”, Eren said with a smile.   
“Good, cause I’m starving. Do you want some too?” Jean lifted himself up and walked into the kitchen.   
“Warm up some of the pasta for me!”, Eren shouted and immediately cursed. He didn’t want to wake the boy up.   
“You’re seriously always way too loud”, Jean said and gave him a slap on the back of his head. He had a bowl of soup in his hand and sat back down on the floor next to Eren. “Eren?”, he said, eyeing the couch, “I hope he doesn’t die here. We’ll get in trouble if he does.”

●

You hear dull voices but they are not more than noise. They blend in with the sound of the rain on the glass of that one tiny window in the top right corner of your room. You don’t understand what they are saying but you know that the voices never mean good things. You try to keep your breathing as even as possible. You try your best to stay calm. But staying calm is hard because the monsters in the white coats haven’t been in your room for what had felt like a week and now they are back again. They are examining you, you understand that much. They pierce a needle through your arm and thank goodness they don’t inject you some painful stuff again. You see your own blood dripping into a small plastic bag. Your blood is the only colour in this landscape of white. You hope that your blood is the only thing that they want right now.

A hand in a latex glove grips your face, hard, like they don’t see you as a living being. They force your mouth open and stick a spatula inside to press your tongue down. It hurts but you know that it’s of no use to scream. You ball your hands to fists, you cramp your toes. Every muscle in your body is hard. You hope they will leave soon. You don’t know what they want. You just endure. They take away the hand from your face. Now they put some sort of box onto your index finger. They open up your eyes forcefully and you cry this time because you want them to stop finally and because you can’t endure this anymore. You want them to stop. They take out a tiny lamp and shine directly into your eye with a bright light. “98 and 61” they say and you don’t understand. One of them writes something down and they leave again as unexpected as they had come.

You’re save again, at least for now. The only sound is now the beating of the raindrops against the glass.

●

It was close to midnight when Jean heard some violent coughing noises. So he got up from his desk, and walked into the living room. The boy on the couch was sitting now, coughing his lungs out. “Are you awake?”, Jean asked carefully. The boy turned his head in his direction and for the first time, Jean saw his huge ocean blue eyes and his thin body. The sweater that Eren had given to him was ridiculously too big on him and made him look even thinner. Jean came closer until he was standing directly in front of the couch and him. From up close, he still couldn’t really say how old he was, his guess covered a span from 15 to 25. His face looked utterly young but his eyes and his entire expression made him look way older. Gently, he placed his hand on the boy’s forehead. His fever had gone down a bit, he wasn’t burning that much anymore. “How do you feel? Are you hungry?”, he asked. He tried to speak as nicely as possible. He didn’t want to scare him. The boy just started to cough again though. “Hold on, I’ll get you something to drink”, Jean said and disappeared to the kitchen.

He took out a glass and filled it with lukewarm water. There must be something he could do, he thought. They needed to bring him to the hospital tomorrow. He got back into the living room and handed him the glass. The boy eyed it suspiciously and then looked back at Jean. “It’s just water. You’ll feel better if you drink. Do you want to eat something as well?” Jean wondered if the boy didn’t respond because he didn’t understand him. Maybe he didn’t speak any English and he had no idea what Jean was talking the entire time. “Parlez-vous francais?”, he asked but the boy just looked more confused. “Shit”, he hissed. French was the only language besides English that he was able to speak decently. Squeezing his eyes shut in thought, he tried to remember the two years of Spanish in high school. “Hablas espanol?” Still no response. “Well, English it is then. Maybe Eren can try German tomorrow”, he said with a sigh.

It took him a few minutes, but finally, the boy took a sip. And then another. And another. He emptied the glass in record time. As if he had forgotten that he had been thirsty. He reached Jean the cup that he hold in both of his small hands and looked at him pleadingly. With a smile, Jean took the glass and refilled it. The second glass was gone even quicker than the first and Jean felt relieved. He remembered his mother telling him to drink loads of water when he had been sick as a child, so the boy should probably drink a lot as well. If he was honest to himself, he had no real idea what to do for a sick person besides giving them soup and aspirin. “Aspirin!”, Jean exclaimed as if he had just found the answer to a very complicated math problem. “Wait a second”, he said and ran into the bathroom.

He opened one of the drawers and looked for the small package. Between band aids and ibuprofens, he finally found a package of aspirin and even a thermometer.“Take one, you’ll be better”, he pressed out a pill out of the plastic and gave it to the boy. He had refilled the glass in the bathroom before he had gone back. He looked at Jean again with this huge blue eyes like he was expecting something horrible, but after eying the pill and Jean carefully for some time, he reached out and took it.   
“Thank you”, he said. His voice was hoarse and barely audible, but Jean heard and smiled.   
“Lie down again, you shouldn’t be sitting for too long. And you should sleep more. I’ll get you some more water. And I’ll leave you some soup here if you want to eat it, ok?”, he said on his way to the kitchen. The boy did as he was told and lay down, pulling the blanket up to his head. Jean came back with water and soup as promised and put them on the coffee table next to the couch. “My name’s Jean by the way. The guy who brought you here is Eren. He’s my flatmate. We’ll get you to the hospital tomorrow. But I promise, you’ll get better.”   
“No”, the boy protested, quiet but firm.   
“You won’t die, I’m sure. You just have a very bad cold”, Jean assured him calmly.   
“Don’t take me to the hospital. Please.”

●

Jean knocked at Eren’s door at 8 am. He hadn’t checked on their guest since he had sent him back to sleep at midnight, but he wanted to know if Eren had. “Are you awake yet, fucker?”, he said and opened the door. Eren was awake and dressed, sitting I front of his laptop. “What are you doing?”, Jean asked and tried to peek at the screen.   
“Googling what you do with a severely underweight person with a bad cold. Google says you’re right, we should take him to the hospital.” Eren closed the laptop and got up. “I’m skipping classes today. Gotta look after my stray human. You don’t have to stay.”   
“I looked after him tonight. I gave him water and aspirin. And he said he didn’t want to go to the hospital.”   
“He talked to you?”, Eren asked, eyes open in surprise.   
“Yeah, but that’s actually the only thing he said.”

They both exited Eren’s room and headed for the living room, where they found their “stray human” as Eren had called him awake and looking a bit better than before. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”, Eren asked. The boy looked terrified as if he was scared of them. Jean tried to blame it on the fever. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt you”, Eren said and stretched out his hand for a handshake. “I’m Eren. I found you yesterday.” He didn’t get a response again.   
Jean looked around and realized that the bowl of soup that he had placed on the coffee table was empty, just like the glass of water. “Do you want more water?”, Jean asked. The boy nodded.   
“I’ll go and get it”, Eren said and disappeared into their kitchen. “Here you go. Do you need anything else?” The boy gulped down the water greedily and looked at them with his big eyes.   
“Thanks”, he said. “Also thanks for the food. I think I haven’t had some food in days. But I don’t really remember. Everything is fuzzy.”   
“That’s probably because of the fever”, Eren said and placed one hand on his own forehead, the other on the boy’s.   
“I found a thermometer yesterday”, Jean said and pointed at the small white thing on the coffee table.   
“Whoa, we own a thermometer?” He picked up the device and eyed it carefully. “Does this thing have some kind of manual?”, he asked after a while.   
“I think you have to press on that little button there”, Jean said, leaning over to Eren and just casually brushing over Eren’s hand while showing him where he had to switch on the thermometer. “Oh sorry”, he said and withdrew. Blushing. Eren was still unsure of the use of the device, that much was clear, but he didn’t want to admit. “Damn, I thought your dad was a doctor. Give me that thing. Say ‘Ah’”, Jean said and put the thermometer in the blond boys mouth. “It’ll beep when it’s done. I think.”

They both stood there awkwardly. They didn’t know what to do while they waited for the thermometer to be done measuring, so Eren was just examining the wood of the coffee table very carefully, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. Jean kept switching between looking at Eren and looking at the other boy. He still looked incredibly thin and sick, but somehow, Jean didn’t get the impression that he was about to die any second anymore. Maybe this was something that could be fixed with sleep and soup. And aspirin. Jean tried to tell himself that his idea with the aspirin was what had made the other look so much better. The beep of the thermometer was relieving, like the bell back in school days after an agonizing period of math. “103.5”, Eren read from the tiny display. “I think we should get you to a doctor today. That’s not good, I guess.”

Suddenly, the features of the other boy that had remotely calmed during the last minutes tightened up again. He looked horrified again, more than ever. “Don’t, please.”   
“Why don’t you want to go see a doctor?”, Jean asked.   
“I don’t know. But I just know that it would be bad”, the boy said and looked at the grey blanked he was wrapped into. Jean and Eren looked at each other, like they tried to find out what they should do now. Neither of them knew. There was a boy on their couch who was sick. They both had no idea what to do with someone who was worse than just an ordinary cold. And they still had no idea who that boy was.   
“Ok, I’ll just call my dad later and ask him what we should do. Ok?”, Eren offered. The boy carefully looked up, still frightened but calmer than at the initial mention of a doctor.   
“What’s your name by the way?”, Jean asked after a while.   
The boy’s brows twitched and he stared at the rain falling onto the window-still behind the water stained glass. “I don’t know”, he said after he had remained silent for a bit.   
“Huh?”, Eren said. “Do you not have a name or do you don’t remember your name?”   
“I think I might have had a name but I’m not sure. My whole head feels empty”, the boy admitted in a hoarse voice.   
“Eren, did he have an ID card with him when you found him? Anything?”, Jean asked. The whole thing was just getting weird for him. There was a sick guy without a name in their living room. If there was one thing he knew then it was that this could mean nothing but trouble.   
“Nope. He had nothing with him. Are you sure you can’t remember? Even if it is just a faint thing, we need something to call you”, Eren said. He sat himself down at the bottom of the couch, facing the blond.   
“Nothing. I don’t even remember how I got here and what happened before”, he said.   
“I found you yesterday in the entrance of a building. You were frightened like crazy and wet like shit. So I brought you here. Actually you passed out on the way.”  
“Oh. Thank you, I guess”, the boy said.

“Eren, what should we do?”, Jean asked.   
“We’ll just give you a name then. Or do you want to pick one? Damn, you can pick now any cool name that exists! Imagine if you had that chance, Jean! You could pick something less lame then”, he said and winked at his flatmate. The boy stared at the rain again, lost in thought.  
“Then I’ll pick Armin. I don’t know why, but this just came to me.”  
With a wide grin, Eren looked at him and said “Armin it is, then!”

●

“Eren?” Jean knocked at his door. They had spent nearly the entire day looking after Armin. And the entire day had just proven what Jean was suspecting from the start. Trouble. Armin didn’t remember who he was, he had no idea where he came from and what had happened to him. So basically, Jean had concluded, amnesia. And he was still violently refusing to be taken to the hospital. And Eren was, surprisingly, not at all suspicious or anything. He was just going with it. “Come in”, he heard Eren say from the other side and so he opened the door and walked inside carefully. Eren’s room was the same size as his, so actually rather small, but it was messier. There were clothes lying on the ground and Eren’s desk was covered in scattered sheets of paper. His bed was unmade and the TV was running with some kind of sitcom on low volume.

“I think we need to talk”, he said and sat down on Eren’s bed.   
“Oh, are you finally confessing your feelings?”, Eren said with a cheeky grin.   
“No, what the fuck, man! About that Armin guy!” Jean’s face was flushed – flushed with embarrassment and anger.  
Eren turned his desk chair around so his chest was facing the back of the chair and rolled it closer to his bed and closer to Jean. “So, what about Armin?”, he said and looked dead serious at his flustered flatmate.   
“What are we gonna do about him?”   
Eren looked from side to side and puffed his cheeks. “We’ll look after him until he’s feeling better”, he answered plainly.   
“And then?”, Jean asked. “He doesn’t know who he is and where he comes from. I know we have to look after him for now but what will we do after he feels better? He can’t stay here, that much for sure.”  
“Why can’t he stay?”, Eren said and he looked like he meant it, like it had never occurred him that Armin couldn’t stay with them forever.   
“Are you kidding? This flat is barely big enough for the two of us. He can’t sleep on the couch forever!” Jean tried his best to stay calm and quiet. He had no intention of waking Armin with their argument but Eren just made him mad sometimes.  
“Yeah, but we must find a way to make him stay. Look, it’s not that I didn’t think about that. But he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, so he’ll stay until he remembers. And if gets sick of the couch we can switch and I’ll take the couch. Or we’ll share my bed”, Eren said with a wink.   
“You perverted motherfucker”, Jean said and picked up a pillow to throw it at him.

“Hey, my mother is a no no!”, Eren said and threw the pillow back at Jean. “Also you could have killed my laptop, man!”   
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I keep forgetting that you’re a huge mama’s boy”, Jean said and this time, he just hit Eren with the pillow.   
Eren caught the pillow mid-air though and took it out of Jean’s grip. “My mom is dead, Jean.”  
“Wait, what?” Jean hadn’t known. They had been sharing a flat for nearly a year now and since nearly a year, Jean had this super annoying crush on Eren. But he couldn’t have guessed. Thinking about it, Eren rarely talked about his family. He had mentioned that his dad was a doctor. But the only one who had come over yet was Eren’s adoptive sister Mikasa. That was everything.   
“Cancer. I was ten”, he said, avoiding to look Jean in the eye. He was holding onto the pillow tighter than necessary probably.   
“Oh shit. Sorry, I didn’t know”, Jean said. He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. This conversation was getting more awkward than intended.

“So back to the topic. We’ll make it work. That’s it.”   
“Don’t you think we should take him to the police or something? Maybe he is missing or he is a wanted convict and we don’t even know!”   
“Jean, do you want to tell me that you suspect Armin to be a wanted convict? Have you looked him in the eye? He probably couldn’t even kill a fly.”   
“But what if he is missing? Maybe he has a family who are already looking for him!”   
Eren sighed. “Maybe. We’ll talk to him tomorrow. Was that everything?”   
“Yeah”, Jean said. He was about to get up when he realized that Eren wasn’t done.

“Sure that you don’t want to confess your feelings?”, he said with a huge shit eating grin and a wink.   
“Goddamn it you fucker. What’s your problem”, Jean said, probably a bit too loud and jumped up from Eren’s bed.  
“You’re mouth says fucker but your blush says fuck me”, he called after his flatmate teasingly. His voice was singing. And he was having a good time teasing Jean, so much was obvious to the other man.   
“You’re a dick, do you know that Jaeger?”   
“Uh, you only call me Jaeger when you’re mad!”, he giggled. “C’mon you can tell me you’re straight as much as you want but I’m not gonna believe you!”

Jean turned around abruptly. He was boiling with rage. He was beyond angry with Eren. Was this the revenge for the motherfucker? He had said he was sorry so what was his problem? Did he just enjoy teasing him so much? He was playing a hopeless game, he knew that. There was no need for Eren to keep reminding him of that. Jean knew he was straight. He kept telling himself how hot Mikasa was but it was of no use. All he could think about were his emerald green eyes, his chocolate brown hair and this expression of someone whose default mood was probably angry. That was how he saw him the first time they had met, when he came around to look at the flat. Now he knew that his emerald green eyes had a shimmer of gold in them and that his chocolate brown hair smelled vaguely like its colour. And he knew that his default mood was protective, but he had a tendency to losing his cool easily. And so here he was, being teased by him until every grain of reason in his head was cooked like a raw egg.

He walked back to Eren who was still sitting on his desk chair like the smug fuck he was, he gripped him by the collar of his black t-shirt and pulled him up until Eren was standing. He could easily punch him now. He wondered if that was what Eren was after. But as he looked into his green eyes, his first impulse was to pull him in closer and to press his lips against Eren’s.

It was like the other had expected him to do so, like it has been his ulterior motive from the start, because he immediately opened his mouth and put his hands onto Jean’s lower back. Jean, who wasn’t really understanding what was happening, placed his hand onto Eren’s waist and he let out a pleased moan when Eren’s hands slid down lower and gripped his butt. He loosened his grip on Eren’s shirt and moved his hand up to his neck, feeling the heat that was radiated by his bare skin. Their kiss was deep and messy. He tasted like the sprite that he had on his desk and the pizza he had eaten for dinner. And Jean felt like he could get drunk by that taste, by that kiss and by Eren.

Eren was eager. He was passionate. He was dominant. He pushed Jean onto the bed behind him, placing himself on top of him. His leg sliding up Jean’s thigh until his thigh rested on top of Jean’s crotch and his hand sliding up below Jean’s shirt. The other was overwhelmed by Eren’s actions, he hadn’t expected anything of that to happen, but he was pleased. He placed his own hands on Eren’s firm back and not for the first time he realized that his flatmate was working out more frequently than he did. He let them slide down to the hem of his boxers, and damn, Eren was hot. His skin was radiating heat and the way he kissed made Jean flush with heat as well. His blood was rushing downward and all he wanted was to get him closer to himself. He let his hands slide down lower into Eren’s jeans, squeezing his butt and pressing him closer to create some friction. He was breathless when they parted the kiss for the first time, flushed and flustered.

“That’s what I’m saying. You can tell me you’re straight as much as you want but I won’t believe you. Now take of your shirt”, Eren said with a smug grin, the last part whispered seductively into Jean's ear. His face was red up to his ears and not less breathless than Jean. His words made something warm and fuzzy spread in Jean's stomach, they made his heart race. He did as Eren had told him and he couldn’t do it fast enough. He lifted himself up a bit and pulled the grey shirt over his head and threw it on the floor next to Eren’s laundry of the past few weeks. And he couldn’t resist but press his lips onto Eren’s neck while he worked his way to the other’s shirt, nibbling at the soft skin there until the other one was groaning. He let go to pull the shirt over Eren’s head and clasped his arms around the other’s neck, pulling him down onto the bed again. Eren nibbled at Jean’s bottom lip, his one hand on Jeans chest and damn, the heartbeat that he was feeling under his palm must be crazy, Jean thought. His other hand was slowly sliding down his side, while Eren’s mouth was also moving downward, first kissing Jean’s jawline and then his neck. He was sucking and nibbling at the skin and Jean’s breath got shorter and shorter. This was insane.

“Eren?”, a faint voice was calling with a knock and before any of them had a chance to react, the door flung open. Armin was standing in the doorframe, the sweater that Eren had given him was hanging down loosely from his thin body, and the pants were barely keeping in their place at his hips. He flushed more than he already was due to his fever when he realized what the other two were doing. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to interrupt, I just wanted to ask where the bathroom was”, he stammered. “But I guess I’ll figure it out on my own. Just, uhm, continue, I guess.” And then he closed the door again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is like 20 % done but since that one will be one monster of a chapter - i decided tonight that things that i initially wanted to put into chapter 3 will still go in there - i hope to be done by midnight tonight or at least tomorrow in the early morning. I'm focusing right now on finishing this. This whole thing was one huge escalation, it just happend (i never intended this chapter to be 6k, i never intended it to become this long, i never intended it at all, to be honest.)  
> Oh and by the way: the "box" in that sequence is a pulsoximeter. The two numbers are oxygen saturation and pulse.


	3. Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of sorry that it took longer than I thought, but then again, I'm not really sorry because I'm still really surprised how much i wrote in two days.

Eren was surprised when he woke up in an empty bed. He was surprised and disappointed, if he was honest. He stretched out in his bed and buried his head in his pillow. He couldn’t skip classes again, could he? And then he screamed into his pillow because there were _things_ that could have happened yesterday. And if Armin hadn’t interrupted, they would have happened. But it couldn’t be helped now, he thought to himself. So he smiled when he thought of Jean below him without his shirt and his expression witnessing of his indefinite lust.

Usually, Eren was not good at detecting people’s crushes, he tended to be the oblivious one. But this time, he had noticed right away. Maybe it had been because they shared a flat and saw each other all the time, but he had noticed all the hints. The stares, the blushes and the unintentional touches. The only problem had been that he was even worse at letting people know that he was interested and that Jean was stubborn like a donkey. He insisted that he was straight. Well in retrospect, his attempts in asking him had been rather plump and careless and he had never been entirely sure if he had been trying to convince Eren or himself of his heterosexuality. But it didn’t matter to him, it had worked in the end.

He picked up the shirt he had worn yesterday from the floor and got out of his bed. His first instinct was to go into Jean’s room, but when he knocked and received no answer, he heard a hoarse voice out of the living room instead. “He went to classes about an hour ago”, Armin informed him. Eren turned around, scratching the back of his neck and walking towards their new flatmate. “Oh”, he answered and eyed the other one carefully. He looked better, like his fever had gone down even more and like his cold was wearing down. Also he figured that now that he didn’t look like a living corpse anymore, Armin was actually quite good looking. He was still incredibly thin, but his face looked pretty. He had a cute button nose, slim lips, large eyes and bold eyebrows. He had something slightly feminine about him. Maybe it was because of his chin long hair, maybe it was because his face looked as fine as porcelain doll.

“Why are you telling me all this? You’re making me uncomfortable”, Armin said suddenly.  
“What?”  
“All those things. About my face. That’s making me uncomfortable”, he explained, even though it felt like he didn’t explain anything at all. “I am explaining. It’s really awkward if you say that my face looks pretty. Especially if you tell me that elaborately.”  
Eren squeezed his lids together, trying to make sense out of this nonsense that Armin was babbling. He blamed it on the fever, he blamed it on the early hour.  
“It’s 10 am. It’s not early anymore”, he said and his face told Eren that Armin was getting a little bit pissed.  
“Ok, the only thing that would make remotely sense is that you are reading my mind. But then again, this makes absolutely no sense at all.”  
“Wait what?”, Armin said and looked up to him with his large blue eyes.  
“I thought about your face. And I thought about that it’s too early for this bullshit. But I never said it, I’m quite sure.” Armin blinked twice and stared at the window, thinking.  
“Why the heck should I be able to read your mind?”, he asked after a while.  
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”  
“Think of something”, Armin commanded.

It was a weird command for Eren, but he wanted to know as well. So he tried to think of the oddest thing possible. He thought of that one time he had fallen asleep in biology class in 9th grade where he had been having that very explicit dream of him with this one guy that used to sit right behind him, this buff blond one. They had been 15, but that guy sure had looked a lot older. His back was like a wall and once after PE, he had peeked at his front and the bulge in his boxers had suggested that he was over average in more than one way. Reiner had been his name, if he remembered correctly. And this one time in biology class, he had dreamed of being fucked by Reiner in great detail. Right on that table in the biology room.

“Oh my god I don’t want to know, Eren”, Armin shrieked suddenly. “How can you think of that with a straight face?”  
“Dunno. So wait, you heard that?” It hadn’t been embarrassing to him to think of that, he thought about those things quite a lot. He thought about fucking Jean a lot. But now, he got embarrassed. He had just thought-told this random dude that he knew for about 36 hours about the wet dream he had right during class. Added to the fact that Armin had walked into him nearly getting laid, this was probably about to get unbearably awkward.  
“Also, I’m sorry for interrupting yesterday. I didn’t know that you uhm”, he said. Armin’s face was crimson red and he seemed to have found something incredibly interesting on the ground.  
“Yeah, I mean how would you have been supposed to know?”, Eren said.  
“You don’t have classes today?”  
“Someone has to look after you and also I overslept and now I don’t wanna bother.”  
“Oh, ok then”  
“Do you feel better? You look better, you know?” Eren had an incredible urge to wrap Armin in a blanket or to ruffle his hair but he wasn’t entire sure how comfortable Armin would be with that.  
“Do I look that vulnerable to you?”, he asked. Shit. It was really awkward for Eren to know that the other could read his mind.  
“No it’s just – you are so thin and fragile and you have this cute face and-” He had the feeling that Armin had been through some shit and he wanted him to protect him from more. Armin’s confused glare reminded him once again that there was no use in thinking. He might as well say everything he had on his mind out aloud.  
“The thing is, I wonder myself what had happened. When I looked in the mirror yesterday, the only thing that kept me from screaming at my own reflection was the fact that I didn’t want to interrupt the two of you even more. I look like a ghost. So I can’t help but wonder what had happened. Also, I believe that it is not normal that I can read your mind.”

Eren didn't know how to respond. So he walked into the kitchen to get himself some cereal. He should have asked what Armin wanted to eat and he should have ordered Armin to go back to bed because he was still weak and sick.  
“Cereal is fine with me too, I think”, Armin yelled from the living room.  
So apparently Armin could hear his thought over that distance as well. He took out two bowls out of the cupboard. Could Armin only read his mind? Or was he able to read every one’s mind? Why could he do that in the first place? The questions came up like mushrooms in the moist forest soil. And thinking about that, he realized that he couldn’t take Armin to the police like Jean had suggested. If he’d tell them that he woke up with the ability to read minds, they would either lock him up in a mental asylum because it did sound crazy. Or they would lock him up in some sort of research facility to find out why he could read minds. And this wouldn’t do.

“Armin, you’re gonna stay”, he said as he put down the bowls onto the coffee table. They didn’t have the space for a real dinner table, so they either ate on the couch or in their rooms at their desks.  
“Are you sure that I’m not a bother? I mean, this place isn’t what you’d call spacey. And I really don’t want to bother the two of you.”  
Eren placed his hands onto Armin’s shoulder, looking him straight into the ocean blue eyes. “You don’t have anywhere else to go. So you’ll stay. Until you remember. And you’re not bothering, ok?”  
“And is that ok for Jean as well? I think he’s not as happy with the situation as you are”, Armin bit his lip. He was not flinching under Eren’s touch, but he was a bit tense.  
“We’ll make it work. Don’t worry about Jean. He’s stubborn as fuck but he’s not heartless. We’re gonna protect you. Whatever happened to you, we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

●

You wake up and you feel like you can’t breathe. Your whole body aches. You want to get up but something restricts you. You realize that you are handcuffed to the bed. You ball your hands to fists, you do it as hard as you can, until your fingernails sink into the flesh of your palms and you feel something warm dripping down. The pain is nothing in your world of agony. You hurt all over, what is another bruise on your hand? But there is this feeling of panic again, spreading inside of your chest. Maybe as bad as the first time you tried to open the door and realized that it was locked. Maybe as bad as the first time they came into your room. Maybe it is worse. You are scared. And you wonder how long it will take until you lose your mind.

You are lonely. You are alone. There is no one. You wonder if there is anyone left in this world. You wonder how you ended up in here. But you can’t remember. Your head is pounding. You remember that you tried to escape. You remember hitting one of them with the plastic cup that you hid under your pillow on the back of his head with all the force that you have inside of your body. You remember kicking the surprised other into the gut. And you remember running until the only thing left is the dull pain of a hit on the back of your head.

You feel like crying. You want to get out but you are trapped. What did you do to deserve this? Why are you here? Your world is spinning, spinning and you want it to stop. You cry for help even though you know no one will come and help you. They are the only ones here and they won’t let you out. You don’t know who they are, they are monsters to you. The monsters who hold you captive. What do they want from you? You don’t know.

You shake your arm, you try to break the handcuffs. At least they could have left you the freedom to walk around in your cell. The rattling of the handcuff echoes in your room, it feels like it is the only sound left. You continue to shake your arm, you hammer onto the handcuff with the other hand until your hand is bruised and your wrist bloody. You are desperate. You scream and you cry. You wonder if you will die here. You are afraid to die.

The tears are burning, they are streaming down your face but they are hot like boiling water. You feel like every tear will burn you. If every tear leaves a scar on your face – what will be left? What will be left of your body when you get out? Will you ever get out? You are screaming, screaming, screaming until your throat is aching. Maybe someone will hear you if you are screaming loud enough. You know that no one will hear you. And you know that you are wrong because they will hear you but they won’t do anything. You wish that you could just die.

The door is beeping and three of the monsters in white enter your room. You can’t see them as human beings because what they are doing is beyond human. But then again, maybe _you_ are not human. You don’t know anymore, you never knew and you finally want to breathe air that doesn’t reek like antiseptic and latex. You wonder if you smell metal or blood. You wonder if it even matters.

They speak to you. Their voices sound distorted and horrifying. “Will you cooperate again?”, they ask you but you know that they don’t ask you but order you. You don’t care, you just want them to stop, to let you go. You hope that they will let you go if you cooperate. So you nod. They don’t answer you, they just put a cuff around your arm and pull it tight until your fingers feel fuzzy. They spray antiseptic on your arm and they take out a syringe. They pierce the needle into your skin like they already did countless times. You scream in pain and you scream even more as the liquid enters your organism. It feels sticky, it feels like it is clogging up your veins. It hurts so much. Your vision gets blurry for a few moments, all you see is black.

Have you passed out? What had happened? You don’t know. All you know is that they are gone again and that you are alone. You don’t want to admit it, but you know that you are trapped here forever.

●

Armin woke up, drenched in sweat. He looked around and realized that he had fallen asleep on the couch and that he was not in that room from his nightmare. His heart was still racing and his breath was fast and unsteady. He bit his lip and tried to calm down again. This was just a dream, he said to himself repeatedly. He realized Eren’s voice as he tried to take some deep breaths. He wasn’t sure yet if it was Eren’s actual voice or his thoughts. The whole mind reading thing was weird for him. _“I wonder if Armin’s awake. I want to get some food but I don’t want to wake him up. I should make food for him too. Wait no, I should wait until Jean is back. He is a better cook than I am. What time is it anyway?”_  
“I’m awake”, he answered. And as he saw Eren’s confused expression, he could have slapped himself because he had answered Eren’s thoughts. But he couldn’t help it. He heard them. Like the other was speaking them out aloud. In fact, he had to look at Eren to distinguish between thoughts and words because the only hint were the movements of his lips. He wondered if he could hear everyone’s thoughts. He had only had the opportunity to test it on Eren yet. At least, since he hadn’t been aware of this skill, he hadn’t realized if he had heard Jean’s thoughts in the morning. They had just met briefly since Jean had been late and more importantly, Jean’s thought hadn’t been as obnoxious as Eren’s so even if he had heard them, he hadn’t noticed. Now he was curious what awaited him when Jean would come back from college.

“Armin, I’ve been wondering, how old are you actually? It’s hard to guess from your appearance”, Eren said and sat down on the ground next to the sofa.  
“Hey, could you sit down so that I can see your face? Don’t get me wrong but then I can tell when you are talking and when you are thinking. I hope that this will make conversation less awkward”, he said and pointed at the couch. He pulled his knees in so that there was actually space to sit down.  
“It will be awkward nonetheless, I mean you know what I’m thinking. What if I’m thinking something lewd by accident?”, he said with a flushed face. Eren got back up and flopped himself onto the couch.  
“You think of lewd things half of the time, Eren. I think you aren’t even aware how dirty your mind is! You thought about Jean’s dick twice already, you thought about how you’d do him when he gets back and let’s not forget the thought about that wet dream.” Armin could watch Eren grow crimson. And then he was suddenly very sorry, since he was making Eren probably even more uncomfortable by pointing them out than those thoughts were making himself. Eren had saved him and he was caring for him. He didn’t want to be mean to him. “I’m sorry. I won’t mention that again.”  
“No it’s fine. It’s actually super cool. I mean, we could find out what people are thinking like that. Imagine the possibilities!” There was a genuine smile on Eren’s face, the smile of a child opening an amazing present. His green eyes were lit up and bright and his whole expression seemed changed. Softer. Warmer.

“To get back to your question – I don’t know how old I am. I don’t remember. But I’m probably not that much younger than you. I guess.”  
“You really don’t remember anything at all, huh”, he said with a sigh.  
“Yeah. And when I look in the mirror, I’m not sure if I want to remember”, Armin said and looked at the blanket. The truth was, he was scared of his memories.  
“I heard once that sometimes, when people live through extremely awful things, they forget them afterwards as some kind of defense mechanism. So they don’t have to really cope with them.” Eren placed a reassuring hand onto his shoulder and tried to look as positive as possible. He was concerned. A lot. _“But that would only explain his memory. Damn, there’s got to be something, just some kind of hint. Why is this so complicated?”_  
“I wish I knew”, he said. Armin hadn’t been paying attention to Eren’s face, so he didn’t realize that he had answered Eren’s thoughts again.

●

Jean had nearly forgotten that they had Armin in their flat by the time he got home. When he opened the door, he found him asleep and Eren asleep as well - on the couch and his head on top of Armin's knees. It was too cute and he had to remind himself that he shouldn’t be staring. They looked peaceful. Eren didn't look like the stupid bastard that he was. And Armin was sleeping like an angel. Maybe, Jean thought, Armin was something like an angel. The golden hair fitted already. He came out of nowhere and his whole story, or more the lack of a story, were weird to him, strange and unreal. He sighed and picked up a blanket out of his room and covered Eren up. He still was unsure what to make of this. Of everything. Could they really let Armin stay? He didn't trust him, but he didn't mistrust him either.

There were two empty bowls on the coffee table, two mugs and a half empty bag of marshmallows. Actually, he'd never clean up after Eren, it was what he had told himself from the start because if he started, it would only get annoying and troublesome. He wanted to clean up his messes, he wanted to care for him, but he was too proud to admit that he did. Damn, he was even too proud to admit that he liked him. He wasn't sure yet what he would do, now that they kissed and made out - they would have gone further if Armin hadn't been there. A part of him wanted to pretend that it had never happened. That it had been the heat of the moment and that it was nothing more than that. But another part of him wanted to tell Eren that he liked him from the moment he first saw him and that he would be more than pleased to kiss him goodnight every evening and to kiss him good morning when he woke up. That he wanted to make him breakfast and to slide his arms around him when he was lost in thought over some stupid assignment. And this was the larger part of him.

He took the dirty dishes and brought them into the kitchen. He placed a gentle kiss onto Eren's dark brown hair when he came back to fetch the marshmallows.  
"You're back", Armin said suddenly. He didn't sound neither glad nor pleased about that, he was just stating a fact. He looked at Jean with his bright blue eyes and yawned. Then, his gaze wandered downward to the sleeping Eren to his knees. He frowned a bit and sighed, poked the top of Eren's brown hair with his finger and giggled when he realized the surprised flinch of the other. "You fell asleep. And I think Jean gave you a blanket. He really cares for you", he said. Again, it sounded like he was just stating a mere fact. "It is a mere fact, Jean."  
"What?"  
"I'm just telling him what I'm seeing. A fact. Nothing more." Confusion was written over Jean's face because he was pretty sure that this had been just his own observation in his head and nothing that he had said aloud.  
"Shit, you didn't say it?", Armin said, eyes opened and his lips pressed together in some sort of really cute frown.  
"Jean, I need to talk to you for a bit." Eren took his hand and pulled him into his room.

Jean didn't know what to expect but the context of the situation told him that it would be appropriate to kiss Eren. He kissed back but broke apart sooner than he expected.  
"Later. Ok, so you probably won't believe what I'm telling you. And you won't like it because it is strange. But the thing is: Armin can read minds."

If anything, Jean was surprised. Surprised that everyone had decided to tell him even the most absurd things like they were the fact that the weather had cleared up a bit. So he furrowed his brow and flicked his finger at Eren's forehead. "Yeah sure. And I can see the future."  
"No really. I tested it. He can. He doesn't know why though. And he thinks that it's odd himself. But that’s how it is. So please, I know you're a huge piece of shit but please try not to think of something too mean when he's in the room."  
"Aha. And you're fine with that?"  
"With what?"  
"We have a guy in our flat who doesn't know who he is, who was nearly dying when you found him and now he can read minds as well? Eren do you think about this at all? This sounds like the most stupid shit ever! I have no idea what we're supposed to do now but we have to do something because this is getting super weird! No, it passed weird about 36 hours ago!"  
"So what do you want to do about it? Bring him to the police and get him locked up for research purposes?"  
"No but..." Jean had no idea. The whole situation was getting out of hand, he had lost control and he didn't like it. He wanted to be in control.  
"That's what I'm saying. We have no choice."  
Jean sighed. He was right. There was nothing they could do about it, they just had to live with it. "So he can really tell what you're thinking?"  
"Pretty much. He kind of hears your thoughts like normal conversation. So when he can't see your face, he doesn't know if you're thinking of speaking."

Jean’s head was spinning. He needed a break. He was about to head out - he actually didn't want to go back to the living room and back to Armin. He wanted to go into his room, turn his music up and lock the door. Ignoring the fact that they had some sort of psychic dude on their couch. But Eren didn't let him.  
"Now", he said with a gentle smile, pulling him closer by his arm and slinging the other around Jean's waist. His lips were quick on Jean's, but Jean wasn't in the mood anymore. Basically, he wasn't in the mood to let Eren decide. He wanted things to go his way, at least once this day.  
"Is this now some kind of thing?", Jean asked while he gently pushed Eren away.  
"If you stop insisting that you're straight." There was a grin on his face, he was cheeky. And even though he had let Jean push him away so that he had withdrawn from the kiss, he still left his hand resting on Jean's waist. Neither of them wanted to let the other have full control and this made Jean excited and uncomfortable at the same time.  
"Maybe I'm not", he admitted. "Maybe I like, you know, kissing you and stuff."  
Eren smirked. "And do you like me?"  
"You're such a dick, Eren."

They left the room and even though Jean really felt like pretending that the whole situation didn’t exist, they went back to the living room. Armin was sitting on the couch, right where they had left him, wrapped into the grey blanket and coughing. They should get something against that later, Jean thought.  
"So, I have been informed that you are a psychic mind reader", Jean said unsure of how he should behave in this situation. It was weird to him. And it felt like Armin was invading his privacy. But he couldn't help it. There was nothing he could do against it.  
"I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me please. I'll try my best to suppress it. I don't know how but I'll manage. Or at least, I’ll try not to listen." His shoulders were tense and pulled up. His eyes bigger than they already were.  
"I'm not mad", he said. Was he mad? He was just a little annoyed. He needed his space and Eren was already someone who used more space than belonged to him.  
"You say you're not mad but your thoughts sound different. Oh no I'm sorry, I'm really sorry." It was pitiful. That boy - maybe he was still half a child, who knew - was so scared and anxious. It made him guilty. He kept forgetting that Armin had probably witnessed hell.

"I'm the one who should be sorry." Maybe they could start over. Maybe he could pull himself together. He let out an exasperated breath when he realized that Eren had been right. He was a piece of shit who couldn’t stop thinking mean things. Hoping that this would do, he reached out his hand. "Will we be friends?”  
Armin looked at him with those big eyes, surprised and unsure of what he should make out of that situation.  
“Friends?” Jean nodded.  
“Friends. I’ll do my best to trust you and to be nicer to you and well, you just keep doing your thing I guess? But it’d be really cool if you could try to keep the whole mind reading thing to a minimum.”  
Armin’s whole expression lit up by then. He seemed more relaxed, his shoulders, his posture, his face. He nodded and smiled. “I don’t remember if I had any others, but you’re kind of my first friend.”  
“Hey, I’m your friend as well!”, Eren said and tried to get all three of them into a big hug. It didn’t really work, since Armin was sitting on the couch, Jean was standing next to him and Eren came up from behind them – the height difference between them was just too much.

●

Armin got better faster than everyone expected. It only took him a few days until his cold was gone completely, his cough took him a few days longer. And after about a week, he didn’t feel weak or sick anymore. Eren and Jean both agreed that this was probably faster than normal, definitely faster than normal, but since they had agreed from the moment they had realized that Armin was able to read minds that this guy was everything but normal, they were not as surprised as they should have been. Whatever it was that gave him some kind of psychic powers and had robbed him of his memory, it enhanced his physical qualities as well.

The thing was, they hadn’t thought about what they would do once he was better. They both went to college, had to study and had lives to live but Armin? They hadn’t realized because up to that point, he had slept most of the time while they were away. But now that he was better and awake most of the day, Eren felt guilty to leave him alone in their apartment.

“You’re sure you’re fine with being on your own the entire day?”, he asked on a Sunday evening about a week after he had picked him up in that entrance. A week. It felt like the blond boy lived with them for a shorter period of time, but then again, it felt like they knew each other for more than a week.  
“I’ll find something to stay busy. I could tidy up your room for example”, he offered with innocent eyes.  
“You’re not tidying up Eren’s room. That boy’s 20, he can clean up after himself”, Jean interrupted. It also felt like he was with Jean since more than a week. Well, they lived together since a year now and since last week, the only thing that had changed in their relationship was that they kissed frequently, they made out and some nights, Jean had stayed over in his bed. His only problem was that they both found it inappropriate to do more than making out while Armin was in their apartment. And Eren was terribly afraid that he would involuntarily interrupt them again because he wanted to ask how to turn on the stove or something. He was quite positive that Armin could pull something like that off.

“But you clean up his dishes and you even did some of his laundry the other day”, Armin said. Jean blushed and averted his head.  
“You did that?”, Eren asked. Now that he thought about it, the clothes that had been scattered over his floor had miraculously disappeared a few days ago. But he had never wondered why.  
“But only cause I couldn’t stand the sight anymore.”

The three of them were sitting on the ground around the coffee table. The couch had somehow lost its purpose as a seat due to it becoming Armin’s bed. So it had become an unspoken agreement to sit on the floor most of the time. Armin was leaning against the couch, his legs spread under the coffee table and his hands folded in his lap. He was still wearing one of Eren’s sweaters and they hadn’t stopped being ridiculously big on the small frame of the blond. It was a navy blue one, the sweater that he had gotten himself at the You Me At Six concert. He would never say it, but it was his favourite. And even though they were all sitting there together and it was way too obvious, he facepalmed himself because Armin definitely knew.  
“I know”, he said with a smirk and looked at him. At least, Eren was glad that Jean would never know. The latter was leaning onto Eren and if there had been one thing that had changed between them, then it was that Jean had grown clingy. And Eren had no problem with that. He liked it that the other searched for his touch whenever he could. He liked it that he looked for his presence. And he found it cute that whenever he or Armin pointed it out, Jean would blush and call him a dick.

“Do you remember how to read?”, Jean asked.  
“I don’t know, but I could try.” Armin suddenly jumped up, ran off and came back with a book that he had obviously taken out of Jean’s room. It was one of the few novels that Jean had read since he had moved in, something dystopian. Armin put the book onto the coffee table and looked at the cover. “Don’t think about the title, that would be cheating”, he said and squeezed his eyes. “It’s ‘brave new world’!”, he exclaimed cheerfully and opened the book on its first page. His eyes quickly scanned the page and before they even realized, he was already on page two, then three, then four.  
“Holy shit, how the fuck are you reading that fast?”, Eren stared at the boy in shock. Jean was probably beyond caring already. His attitude had shifted during the past week, he wasn’t as openly opposing to sheltering Armin anymore. When the two of them were alone though, he told him what bothered him. And it was quite a bit.  
“Is that fast?”, he looked up from the book. It didn’t sound like he wanted to show off his incredible reading ability, he was more genuinely curious.  
“Eren, he can read minds. Are you really that surprised that he’s able to read at lightning speed?”, Jean said, running his hands through Eren’s hair. It was probably meant to be a teasing gesture, but it more felt like a cat that wanted attention and affection.

“He wants you to kiss him, Eren”, Armin said.  
“Dude, that’s messed up. Please, stop!” Jean threw a potato chip at Armin and tried his best to hide his blush.  
“You don’t have to read minds to see that”, Eren said with a wink. He cupped Jean’s cheek with his palm and pulled his face closer to his. He had intended to just give him a short one, but he changed his mind mid action and opened his mouth. The other did too, he placed his right hand onto Eren’s side, his other hand rested at the hem of his jeans. Eren let his hand slide up the back of Jean’s head, over the dark brown stubble of his undercut and every breath that Jean moaned into Eren’s mouth made him want to deepen the kiss even more.  
“Do you mind if I watch?”, Armin said. And there was not a grain of shame in his voice, he didn’t even look like he had just asked two people making out if he could watch. His expression was the same as earlier, something between curious puppy and innocent child.

●

The funny thing was, Armin didn’t even remotely understand the word privacy. Or the word personal space. Actually, he probably understood the words but not the concepts behind them.

“Can we buy those?”, he said, a box of cereal in his hand. Taking him to the supermarket had been a bad idea, Jean thought to himself, but they had had no choice. They had to go grocery shopping and since they had to leave him alone most of the time already, they had decided to take him to his first field trip.  
“Didn’t you already pick those?”, Jean said, pointing at another box in the cart.  
“Changed my mind”, he just answered and exchanged the one in the cart with the one in his hand. He walked next to Jean and like usually, he was really close. His shoulder regularly brushed against him and Armin showed no sign that he even realized. But truth be told, Jean never showed signs that it bothered him either, besides from blushing slightly. Maybe because it didn’t bother him.

“We need milk, by the way, I drank yours because mine was empty.” Eren had been in the next aisle and came back with three cans of beans in is hands and shoved them into the cart. Then, he shoved himself between Jean and Armin. “Sorry”, he said and kissed Jean on the cheek.  
“I hate you”, Jean said and sneaked his hand into the pocket of Eren’s jeans.  
“I forgot what we wanted to get actually.”  
“Pasta, eggs, cheese, toast, cornflakes, pizza, hot pockets, coffee, ham, toilet paper, yogurt, orange juice and lettuce. And milk.” Armin pointed at the pasta in the shelf, his other hand on Eren’s upper arm.  
“Your memory is creepy.”

Jean had stopped to wonder about the incredible mental powers of their new flatmate, he just accepted every new trait that they discovered because he had no choice. But he had grown fond of Armin quite a bit. He was too much of an innocent angel to not like him. Eren on the other hand got surprised over everything, like it was that far-fetched that a guy who could read minds was able to memorize all the books in their apartment during two days. Since he had read everything, he chose to solve the exercises in all of their college text books as his new task.  
“Do you think so?”, Armin asked.

The three of them probably looked like an odd group for the rest of the people in the store. The smallest of the three in another one of Eren’s sweaters and for the first time in a pair of jeans that would have already fallen off if he wouldn’t be wearing a belt. They should probably buy him proper fitting clothes soon. And then Eren, who had suggested calling grocery shopping a “field trip” in the first place. He consistently ignored the list of things they had to get and Jean couldn’t help but wonder how much money his dad left him as allowance. It felt a bit like taking two children to the supermarket. And then Jean himself, who got flustered over every silly remark Eren made or over every time Armin neglected his personal space.

“Hey, Eren, look, they even have apples! Why was yours so expensive again? They’re not even a dollar, you made a really bad deal.” He could hear Armin giggle. The other pinched him in the side, right where he knew that Jean was ticklish.  
“Wow, now even you can afford one! Or do you want me to get one for you as a Christmas gift?” He continued to pinch his side and it took every bit of self-control of Jean not to burst into laughter in the store.  
“Oh god, please stop”, he said while he tried to get a hold of his boyfriend’s hands.  
“Thank you, but my friends call me Eren, you know?”  
“You’re a dickhead. I hate you.”  
“No, you don’t.” He waited for a moment where Jean turned his face towards him and stole a quick kiss. It was what he liked about Eren, but he wasn’t used to him doing those things in public. So his heartbeat sped up more than usual when Eren surprised him like this and his face got even redder.

“Wow, they even have books here!” The blond took one of their hands in each of his and pulled them towards an aisle with magazines and those housewife novels. “Maybe I could get another book or two?”, he gave them puppy eyes. He knew that he had no money. He knew that he needed the other two to survive. And sometimes, Jean wondered if that was the reason he was the way he was – clingy sometimes and sunny usually. But then he forced himself to cast away those thoughts because Armin could hear them and he wanted to be his friend. He wanted to trust him. So he looked at Eren questioning and the other nodded. “Yeah, you can pick two, we’ll pay for them.” It didn’t even take him a minute do decide on the two probably largest books in the store.  
“If I take two of the shorter ones, it won’t even be a real occupation.”

He took their hands again and led them back to the cart. “So where were we?” They continued to walk through the aisles, picking up things that they needed and things that they didn’t. And sometimes things that probably no one needed. Jean tried to take Eren’s hand whenever Armin decided to push the cart, but whenever he did, the third let go of the cart because he saw something interesting or something they needed and sometimes, he showed them expensive things, wine, cheese, meat and told them: “One day, I’ll buy you these.” He came close, there was usually not more than an inch between him and Jean or Eren, most of the time less. He had the habit to take their hands, to touch. He didn’t behave like the scared deer Eren had found not too long ago. But if anything, Jean was glad that Armin trusted them that much.

“You know, sometimes I get the feeling that Armin is part of our relationship”, Eren said as they put their groceries onto the belt. He was joking, laughing, he kissed Jean right after that. He kissed him longer than he had done before in public, their hands intertwined and his other hand on Jean’s back.  
“Like a child?”, he asked because he wasn’t sure how Eren had meant it – it could have been both. He sometimes was unsure himself. He felt like he had to care for him, to look after him. But he felt this like he always had with Eren. That he wanted to do things for the other just because he liked them. And it was as if Armin had magical powers besides his incredible mind. He had cast a spell on him. He had already blown away most of the suspicions he had had, he had drawn him towards him. He would have never expected that it wouldn’t bother him the slightest to have Armin around all the time. He never expected that it wouldn’t bother him that Armin squeezed himself between them. And if he didn’t think it would be incredibly inappropriate, he would maybe, one day, ask Eren what he thought of the idea of a threesome.  
“Well, You’d think he’d be the third wheel, but I don’t mind him at all”, he squeezed Jean’s hand, he kissed him and kissed him like he was afraid that he had offended him. He kissed a million insecure, butterfly like kisses, reassuring him, trying to appease him but there was no reason to appease.  
“Me neither”, Jean said and kissed him back.

●

You wake up, surrounded by them. They ask you questions. They let you solve puzzles but you can’t because they are hard and your mind feels fuzzy. You watch them take notes, you wait for them to hurt you again. You flinch every time you don’t know the answer because you expect them to punish you. You are scared. You don’t know what they want.

Whenever they came to inspect you, whenever they came to inject you some weird things, you had an idea of what was about to happen. You knew that they would hurt you. But now, you don’t know what they’ll do, you just hope that they’ll leave soon and that they leave without hurting you. You are confused and the panic grows stronger whenever one of them moves a bit closer to you. But they just ask you questions, they hand you sheets with more questions, with puzzles and riddles and it is hard for you to decipher them because all you see is white and the black on those sheets is not familiar anymore. You try to remember how colours looked but the only colour that you can picture is blood red. Red and white are the only colours that you know. You have already forgotten how you look like.

They nod and leave and you don’t understand why didn’t they do anything? You wonder if it’s good or bad, you wonder if it has a meaning. You try to figure out what they want from you but your mind is white like the room. You wonder if you have gone mad, if you are dead already and if this is hell, but then you try to tell yourself that this isn’t hell, that you’re still alive and that you’ll get out.

You want to rub your eye but you forgot the handcuff. You wonder if your mind had always been like that. You try to remember what had happened yesterday and the day before but everything is vague, you only remember pain and fear but nothing concrete. Why are you handcuffed to the bed? Why are you here? You try to shake the handcuff away, you try to break it but then you realize the bruises around your wrist. You scream, you scream for help, you scream that you want to get out but your voice just echoes in the empty room. You scream but you don’t even realize that your voice is hoarse because you have screamed so much. You just suddenly feel the pain when you try to swallow.

Where are you? Who are you? You don’t remember anymore but you know that you are trapped, you know that you need to get out. So you ignore your aching throat and continue screaming.

●

Armin looked at the clock of the TV recorder. It was 2 am. Those dreams again. He was scared of them. He didn’t know what they meant, but he guessed that they were somehow connected to his past that he couldn’t remember. He sat up on the couch, breathless and once again, drenched in sweat. What had happened to him? It was more a reflex that he started to cry, he just wanted to forget those dreams but he wanted to remember his past and everything was just a bit too much for him.

“Are you ok? We heard you scream.” He turned around to see Eren standing a few feet from the couch, a worried frown on his face. _“Shit, is he crying? He is crying. This is not good.”_ He moved towards Armin, sat down on the couch, careful not to sit on his legs and put his hands onto Armin’s shoulders. The touch felt warm, calming. And he felt the need to rest his head onto Eren’s chest, to cry because someone was there, someone who was not one of those people in white coats of his dreams. “There, there”, Eren said and started to rub Armin’s back. _“This is definitely not good. Did he have a nightmare? Maybe he remembered his past. Shit I hope he doesn’t remember some super traumatic shit.”_ He couldn’t control the sobs, he couldn’t hold back the tears. And he was scared that Eren might leave him alone so he gripped his shirt, held onto it as tight as he could. “Everything will be alright. It’s ok”, he hummed into Armin’s hair.

Would it? Every day he discovered that his mind was far beyond average, even far beyond extraordinary. His mind had already surpassed human. And while he had been alone the last few days, he had done his research. It had been so easy to get into Jean’s computer, it had been barely a task of a few minutes to figure out his password. And it had scared him. He was scared of himself. It had started with mere curiosity. He had needed something to do after he had been done with the books and he had forgotten to ask for the computers. It came naturally to him to just switch it on. And when he had seen the start screen, he had seen it like a riddle, like something to kill some time with. And then he had felt guilty. But he still needed to find out so many things. He started to research the concepts of the human mind, the structure of the brain and the details of neuroscience. He had gotten paranoid. There were no records for powers like he had. He had known it somewhere, that it couldn’t have been normal, but to possess powers that you could usually only find in works of fiction made him shiver. He was not sure if everything would be alright.

“Hey, is everything alright, babe?”, Jean looked at them from the distance, he looked sleepy, he didn’t seem to be really there, but his posture changed when he realized that Armin was sobbing violently, and that Eren was doing his best to calm him down. _“Holy shit. What did Eren do. What’s going on.”_ And so he walked closer too, crouched down a bit and gently rubbed Armin’s arm.  
“They’ll find me. They’ll come and find me. It’s no use to hide here”, he sobbed.  
“Who? Who will find you?”, Jean asked. _“Shit, does he remember his past?”_  
“Those guys from my dreams! I keep having those nightmares, where I am trapped in a white room and there are those people who look like doctors in white coats and with white masks and they treat me like a lab rat.”

Armin clung even more onto Eren’s shirt, he needed to know that he was there. He needed to know that Jean was there. They promised to protect him, the will, won’t they?  
“Calm down, no one’s gonna come. You’re safe, Armin. Those are just nightmares.” Eren took Armin’s face into both of his hands, lifted it up so all he was seeing were Eren’s green eyes and then started to stroke his hair. _“Shit, this is bad, this sounds bad. This would explain a lot. Please let this just be his dream”_ Armin’s heart started to race. He hated the fact that he could hear what they thought. _“A human lab rat? This is messed up, this is super messed up.”_ Jean tried to squeeze himself onto the couch as well but the only space where he fitted was the armrest. _“What should I do? How do we calm him down? This is bad.”_ He rubbed Armin’s back, he whispered that everything would be ok, that he had just had a bad dream. But their thoughts told him that both of them got scared as well, they seemed to know that this must be his past, the reason why he was like this. And it scared him even more.

“Please, please don’t leave me. Promise me that you don’t let them take me back”, he pleaded. He shook Eren, he didn’t know what to do, he just wanted to forget again. He hammered his hands against his chest, his shirt still firm in his hands. “Please, please, don’t let them do this to me again!” _“What should I do? How should I protect him? They’re not looking for him, are they?”_ He placed his hands on Armin’s wrists.  
“We’re gonna protect you.” He felt like this was not enough. He was scared, the only thing on his mind was fear, suffocating, painful fear. _“It’s not working. What should we do?”_

And then he felt Jean’s arms around him, he felt his head on his back, he felt the warmth. He felt the warmth of Eren’s hands on his wrist, of Eren’s forehead on his, the tickling of his hair on his skin. And slowly, he started to believe that they would stay with him. He wiped away the tears from his face.  
“You see? We’re here. You’re safe”, Eren said. He smiled at him.  
“Yeah, we’re not gonna let them take you again.” He felt Jean rubbing his back, but the absence of his arms around him left him cold. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”, he asked.  
Armin shook his head. He was too scared that the dreams might return. And he was scared to be alone.  
“It might get a bit crowded, but you can sleep with us, if that makes you feel better”, Eren said. His thoughts were filled with worries if that would be ok. He looked up to see Jean’s reaction, but the other just nodded.

●

On Thursdays, Eren and Jean finished their last class at the same time. So Eren waited for Jean in front of their college’s gate. Jean was already five minutes late.  
“Excuse me, but have you seen this man?”  
The first he saw was the paper in front of his face. And then he took a look at the picture, expecting it to be some kind of mug-shot. But it was a regular photo of a young man, he could be 18, 19. He had chin long blond hair, blue eyes. He smiled at the camera, he had a pretty smile. He had a cute nose. He nearly choked on his own spit when he recognized him. It was a picture of Armin. The man showing him the picture looked at him, expressionless. A middle aged man, his shirt was white and his pants grey.

His entire life, Eren had mainly listened to his instinct. It had been instinct to care for Armin. It had been instinct to pick the most annoying and obnoxious guy as his flatmate. This time, his instinct told him that he shouldn’t trust this man.  
“No, I’m sorry. Are you looking for him?”  
“He is missing since a few weeks”, he answered. There was not a single twitch in his face.  
“Oh, I hope you’ll find him”, he lied. He hoped that he wouldn’t. And then the man just left.

This was bad. They were after Armin. What should he do?  
“Sorry. But you don’t know what just happened”, Jean said. He didn’t say hello again. But his face looked troubled and Eren had a good idea what had happened.  
“They are looking for him.”  
“What should we do?” He was biting his lip. He was probably as nervous as Eren himself.  
“Should we tell Armin?” He knew that they shouldn’t. He had those nightmares, but he still didn’t remember anything. And those nightmares scared them all to the bone. He thought about the face that Armin had made when they had tried to calm him down the night before. It was similar to his expression from the day that he had found him.  
“We need to make sure that they won’t find him.”

As they slowly walked home, the air felt unbearably thick. No one dared to say a word. Jean had been right from the start, the whole story meant trouble. But as it turned out, the trouble was not really Armin’s fault. They cared too much for him already to let those people have him again. They want to experiment on him because he’s special, Eren thought. He wondered who they were, maybe they were from the government who wanted to find out how to use his powers for warfare. Or maybe they wanted to find out where his powers came from and how to reproduce them, some weird neuroscientists who want to create a superhuman race. But whoever wanted him, they wouldn’t get him.  
“Jean?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Do you want to… you know, hold hands?”, he asked. He wanted to feel the other. He needed to know that he was still in all this. Jean stopped and looked at him. He blinked a few times, stared at him while he blushed a little. And then, he stretched out his hand, so that Eren could take it. He intertwined their fingers, circling his thumb over the back of Jean’s palm.

“How do you plan on hiding it from Armin?”, Jean asked as they continued walking. Their apartment wasn’t that far from the campus, so they needed to plan their strategy before they got home.  
“I don’t know. We have to think about other things. But whatever happens, he mustn’t find out that they are already looking for him.” Jean sighed in response and squeezed his hand.  
“You care for him a lot.” He smiled while he said it. It was not reproachful. Eren knew that he did as well, even though he never said it.  
“He needs us. And I like him.”  
“I know. So do I. Shit, this will get troublesome. I see it coming.”  
“I never break promises.”

He didn’t let go of Jean’s hand until they were in front of their door. It was something to cling to. He took a deep breath and tried to prepare himself for facing Armin again. “Hey, but you like me more than Armin, don’t you?”  
“Shut up, fucker”, Jean answered and kissed him before he opened the door.

●

He knew that they were hiding it. He knew that they didn’t want him to know. But he could hear them think. And it made him uneasy. He wanted to scream when he heard it. But he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to worry them more. They would protect him, he kept telling himself. They wouldn’t let them find him, he repeated in his head. But he decided as well that he couldn’t leave their apartment from now on.

_“Why the heck is Eren always taking my milk? He has his own.”_ The sound of Jean’s thoughts and from his barefoot steps on the living room floor woke him out of his own train of thoughts. Judging by the tightness of the shirt he was wearing, it was probably Eren’s. Armin looked down on himself and sighed. He couldn’t ask them for his own clothes. He already felt bad for staying, eating their food and worrying them. But he had nowhere else to go. And he felt safe with them, so he didn’t want to go anywhere else.

“Have you seen Eren?”, he asked. He looked sleepy, his hair was still messy. It was still early in the morning, it was Saturday.  
“He went to the gym about half an hour ago”, Armin answered.  
“Damn, this poser”, Jean said and yawned.  
“Do you want a coffee as well?”  
“Yes please, thank you.” The other disappeared into the kitchen and soon, Armin heard the bubbling and rattling sound of the coffee machine. He had grown quite fond of the smell of fresh coffee and he had also figured that the coffee that Eren made tasted better than Jean’s.

Jean came back with two cups and gave one to Armin. The coffee was steaming and as he watched Jean drink it, he saw him coming to live with every gulp. _“Why am I even awake?”_ He wondered if he should answer, he wondered if it was appropriate to say that he probably woke up because he realized the lack of obnoxious snoring. Because he had gotten used to this himself so much already that he found it hard to sleep when the sound was gone. Then he remembered that he had promised to keep the mind reading to a minimum and not to answer to thoughts anymore.

“I used your computer”, he said suddenly. It was one of the things that bothered him, and since he was uneasy most of the time, he felt the need to at least tell him about this. Jean blinked, he looked a bit shocked. The cup in his hand was like a threat to his own safety so he put it onto the coffee table, he stared at him.  
“Why?”  
Armin felt the guilt rise inside of him, it strangled him. So he looked at the grey socks he was wearing and wished he could exchange his mind reading power for a time skipping one. “Research”, he said.  
“Research?” There was more than this word in Jean’s thoughts. But he tried to ignore all the curses that he could hear loud and clear. He tried to focus onto what the other man in front of him said. And so far, his amber eyes didn’t look hostile.  
“About my brain. And my mind. And about brains and minds in general.”  
“But I have a password. How did you get in?”, Jean asked. He looked like he tried to find it ridiculous, he smiled, he laughed. His thoughts didn’t smile.  
“04171994. You seemed like the type of person who’d use his birthday as a password.” Armin spoke slowly. He balled his hands to fists, he looked for something to hold on to. So he took his pants, Eren’s pants, and squeezed the fabric until his knuckles hurt. “I’m sorry.”  
“You should have asked”, Jean said. _“Am I this easy to see through? Was it that obvious? I need a new password.”_  
“Please, don’t think of your new password while I’m around. You were right, you shouldn’t trust me.”

And then, Jean suddenly laughed, his features softened again and he placed his hand on top of Armin’s head, ruffling his hair. He took a strand of blond hair that fell into his face in turn and tucked it behind his ear. “It’s ok”, he said. If his thoughts had sounded grey and cloudy up to that moment, it was like the sun came out right then.  
“Are you sure? I’ll leave if you want me to. If you think it’s too dangerous or troublesome to have me around, I’ll find another way. I could understand if you don’t trust me anymore. And I understand if you think I’m weird and creepy. You just have to tell me and I’ll be gone.” Every word felt like a stone in his throat. He said it, but he didn’t mean it. He was scared. He hoped that Jean wouldn’t tell him to leave. With every word, his throat felt tighter, his eyes hot and stinging. He could cry and he knew it.  
“Hey, look at me. I’m not telling you to leave. I want you to stay”, Jean said. He took his chin in his hand, lifted it up so that Armin didn’t look at the ground or at some spot behind Jean. His amber eyes were warm. They were calm. Jean was calm. _“I have no idea why I trust him. This is not normal. I should tell him to get lost. I should yell at him. But I can’t. I don’t want him to cry. I want him to smile. I want to hold him and tell him that everything will be ok until he believes me. Shit, what is wrong with me.”_

Armin was not supposed to know this. He wished that he didn’t knew. He felt bad for constantly squeezing in between Jean and Eren. But he was jealous. He wasn’t jealous that Jean was closer to Eren or that Eren was closer to Jean. He was just jealous and he didn’t understand. He wanted them to tell him to stop. He knew that he wouldn’t stop unless they told him. But he knew that they wouldn’t tell him that. Because they didn’t mind. And it made him mad. Mad with rage but more mad with want.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re weird. Or creepy. You’re special.” It were those words and maybe Jean’s thoughts that broke the last restraint in his mind. But he took one last good look into the warm rays that the colour of Jean’s iris emitted, closed his eyes and kissed him.

_“I could even kiss him”_

●

Eren found Armin sitting on the floor right in front of the door. His eyes looked red and swollen.  
“Armin? What’s wrong?”, he asked and crouched down. He was prepared for the worst, for another panic tantrum, for Armin being hurt by Jean, for Armin remembering every probably traumatic detail of his past.  
“I’m a bad man”, he whispered. His blue eyes were directed at him, his expression pained, he shook his head.  
“No you’re not. You’re amazing and no one should tell you otherwise.” Eren gently stroke Armin’s silky hair. “What did Jean do?”  
“He didn’t do anything! Please don’t be mad at him, it’s all my fault.” The tears were streaming down his face and Eren wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He wanted to calm the other down, he didn’t like to see him cry, he liked his smile more. Because when he smiled, his blue eyes were glistening like the surface of the ocean in the summer sun. He was glistening like the summer sun whenever he smiled.  
“Shh, it’s ok. What happened?”  
“I kissed Jean. I kissed him and I feel really bad about it because I shouldn’t have done it.”

Eren got back up and closed the door behind him. He knew himself quite well. He knew that in a situation like this, his vision would turn red. So he turned away from Armin because the last thing he wanted was to yell at him. He faced the wall behind him, the door, and took a few breaths. He waited for the rage to boil up. But there was no rage and there was no anger. His vision was as clear as usual. So he faced Armin again, wondering what he was feeling. What did he think about that?

“You’re not mad?”, the other asked. He had probably heard his whole train of thought and he expected him to know that he wasn’t.  
“I don’t really get it though. I should be mad at you for kissing my boyfriend. But I’m not. The more I think of it, the less it bothers me, if I’m honest. Now get up”, he stretched out his hand to help Armin get off the ground. He wondered how long he had been sitting there and what he had expected to happen.  
“So you’re not gonna kick me out?” In the deep blue ocean of Armin’s eyes, he still spotted fear. The same kind of fear that he had seen in them when he had found him. It was fainter than back then, but he realized that Armin was once again existentially afraid.  
“Why the hell should I kick you out?”, he said. And as a response, Armin muttered something that sounded like a “thank you” between tears, he slung his arms around Eren’s waist and hugged him. He didn’t let go, he continued hugging him until his shirt was stained with his tears. So Eren started to stroke his hair again, he started to hug back and he started to mutter things that sounded like “it’s ok” into the straw blond hair.

“But are you sure that you aren’t mad?”, he asked as he loosened his grip a little.  
“I’m not mad at all. Are my thoughts telling you that I’m mad at you?” He didn’t have to force himself to smile. He just wanted that Armin smiled again as well.  
“No.”  
He used the hand that had rested on top of Armin’s head until now to cup his cheek. He wanted the other to look at him. “What do my thoughts tell you?”  
“They tell me that you want me to smile”, he said. And with his thumb, Eren wiped away the tears that were still on Armin’s face.  
“Smile again”, he whispered. So the other tried, he first just pulled the corners of his mouth up. Eren smiled back, as warm as he could. He’d probably travel the skies, look for the star that shone the brightest and bring it down himself to make Armin smile. And then, slowly, the smile of the blond became more and more honest. “You look so cute when you smile.” His voice was still hushed. It was not that he wanted to hide what he was saying. He would do the same for Jean. And he could say the same thing to Jean. Yet, this words were special. They were too gentle to be spoken out loud.

The more he thought about it, the less it bothered him. It hadn’t really bothered him from the start. He was just a bit confused. Because he felt like he was enchanted, like there was something that he couldn’t explain that drew him close to Armin. He felt like he knew him for a lifetime, he couldn’t picture living without him anymore. And he couldn’t picture living without Jean anymore. What he felt for Jean and what he felt for Armin – it was both different, completely different. But it was somehow the same.

“I shouldn’t be listening”, Armin said, smiling, looking up to Eren. There was still Eren’s hand holding up his face, there were still his arms around Eren’s waist.  
“You should.” It was the magic of the moment probably that made the distance between their faces melt away. And it was certainly magic when their lips touched because it is always special when you kiss someone for the first time.  
“Armin, I think I like you more than I should. And don’t get me wrong, I like Jean really much as well. I kind of like you both, do you know what I mean?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, thank you so much for leaving kudos, for bookmarking and for the lovely comments!! They just really make my day :3 Also, if you want, you can follow me on [my tumblr](microshibamomotaro.tumblr.com) because I sometimes talk about my writing progress and stuff. And I kind of wanna update around saturday/sunday again.


	4. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated on Sunday, just a week later. I need to stop excusing for being late with updating at the beginning of every chapter.
> 
> Oh and a funny annotation to the chapter title: since I don't count the prologue as a real chapter, this is chapter 3 for me and yes, the title chapter 3: Three made perfect sense to me.

“I know that this is an awkward suggestion, especially coming from me, but what if we made it the three of us?”

It came out of nowhere, it was not like Armin had asked them to sit down and listen to what he had to say. There had been no “we need to talk”, no “I want to say something”. He had just looked up from his book that Jean had brought him from the library. He had asked while Jean was in the kitchen, cutting onions. While Eren sat on the ground, leaning onto the couch and watching CIS.

Not even three hours had passed since Armin had kissed him on that couch. Not even three hours since he had shut himself inside of his room, curled up in a blanket and staring at the wall next to his bed. Because he hadn’t been supposed to do that. And he hadn’t be supposed to kiss back. He was with Eren. He wanted to be with Eren. And not even two hours had passed since Eren had knocked on his door, had lay himself down next to him, his hand on his cheek and had kissed him until Jean had broken apart and apologized over and over again. Not even two hours since Eren had laughed and said “no need to apologize, shitface” and placed a kiss on his nose. Then he had looked at him with a smile and had said “I kissed him too, you know”. He had looked at him in confusion, because Jean had expected that Eren would be mad, that Eren would yell at him how he could have done something like this. He had wondered if he knew his boyfriend at all. Then he expected himself to be mad, to be jealous, but he wasn’t. “I like you. And I like Armin”, Eren had said between kisses.

They had just continued to go on with their day from then on, things between them had been as always. The only thing that had been strange was Armin, because neither of them knew what they were supposed to do with him. They liked each other and they liked him. Jean wondered if Armin had made his suggestion because of what they were thinking, he wished to know what the blond was thinking. It was really hard to tell. He pictured the mind of the blond to be an weird place, he couldn’t quite grasp it because it was somehow supernatural but he liked to imagine that if an ordinary mind was like the night sky on a meteor shower, Armin’s was an entire galaxy.

“Like, a relationship between you, Jean and me?”, Eren said and switched off the sound of the TV. It suddenly got so quiet. “Kind of”, Armin said. He closed the book that he had on his lap and laid it onto the coffee table in front of him. Jean put down the knife in his hand and wiped away the onion tears from his eyes. He walked into the living room, leaning onto the doorframe. His gaze wandered between Armin and Eren and he had no idea what he was supposed to say. He wanted to say yes, but he wasn’t sure if he should since he wasn’t sure if Eren would say yes as well. And even though he wanted to be the one in control, he had no intention of pressing Eren into a relationship that the other didn’t want.

“I don’t know what Jean thinks about it, but yeah. I told you. I like the both of you equally.” Eren locked eyes with him, telling him to come over to them. And Jean smiled, crossed the room and gripped Eren’s hand. He pulled him off the ground, let himself fall onto the couch next to Armin and placed a kiss onto his boyfriend’s lips. “Why not”, he said. He was surprised of himself. He would have never expected this to happen. He had never expected Armin in the first place, but he had never expected himself to end up in a relationship with two men. And he was happy with that.  
“Do you want to kiss me as well?”, Armin asked, his blue eyes large and fixed onto Jean who was sitting in the middle, now that Eren had sat down on the couch next to him. Jean turned his head towards his other boyfriend, he pulled him in closer and kissed him. He tasted like coffee and cereal, bittersweet. But there was nothing bittersweet about their kiss, his lips were soft and beautiful.  
“Jean, now you’re double gay”, Eren teased.  
“I don’t think that that’s how it works, Jaeger.” He pinched his side and gently bit into his nose. “You better be quiet now before you don’t get any lunch.”  
“Oh my, you’re threatening your boyfriend? How mean!”

Jean was about to get back up and into the kitchen, because if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be an empty threat that Eren wouldn’t get any lunch. But he didn’t get the chance to do so, because two hands pulled him back onto the couch. “Don’t go yet”, Armin said with some kind of cute pout. Seriously, that boy just had to be magic in some way. He leaned his head onto Jean’s shoulder and intertwined his small fingers with the other’s. “Yeah, I’m not done yet”, Eren said. “Lunch can wait.” He stretched out his arm behind his back, trying to put it around Jean and Armin, even though his arm was only long enough to reach the ear that leaned on Jean’s shoulder. So Eren started to play with the strands of blond hair there, Jean could feel the tickling of the moving fingers. He felt like he didn’t have to get up at all. Maybe for the rest of the day. It was warm and comfortable. He felt at home as much as he probably never did before. Then Armin lifted his legs up, placed them on his and Eren’s lap. And Jean felt the strong urge to play with the hem of the leg of the grey sweatpants he was wearing. So he did. Until he heard the rumbling of Eren’s stomach.

“Apropos lunch, can we help you somehow?”, Armin asked.  
“There’s not enough space in the kitchen for more than one”, he said and gently pushed Armin’s legs back down.  
“But we could do something in the living room?” Head tilted, he thoughtfully nibbled at the knuckle of his index finger.  
“We’d get lunch faster, you know?”, Eren said. He had never offered to help him cook, maybe because he thought that Jean was the better cook and didn’t need any help, maybe he didn't feel like helping Jean and maybe he was just incredibly hungry.  
“If you insist.” Jean’s hand lingered in Armin’s and Eren’s hair as he got up. He actually didn’t want to let go.  
“So, what should we do?”

Jean got two plastic cutting boards and two knives from the kitchen and placed them on the coffee table in front of his boyfriends. “You can cut the carrots and the celery. I’ll continue with the onions in the meantime.”  
“Jean?”, Eren asked when Jean was already back in the kitchen and busy with dicing the onions. He sounded like he was holding back laughter.  
“Huh?”, he said and peeked his head out of the doorframe. “If you want us to cut the carrots and the celery, you should give it to us.” And then he laughed, probably a bit more than necessary. Armin first stared at Eren and then at Jean, but after a while, he started to laugh as well, he laughed and laughed, more than he ever had since he had started living with them.  
“It’s not that funny”, he said and placed two carrots and a chunk of a celery root on the table.

●

The last time Armin had slept in Eren’s bed with both of them, it had been after his nightmare. And back then, he hadn’t really slept, he had just stared at the ceiling, squeezed between them. This time, he thought while he let the hot water fall onto his body, it would be different. The shower felt relaxing, it calmed him down. Just erasing all the weird thoughts, the fear. Just thinking about what would come afterwards. Being cuddled up between his two boyfriends and sleeping. Warmth and comfort. He took the bottle with Jean’s shampoo and started to rub it into his hair. Jean’s smelled better, it smelled like Jean, like something warm and nutty, he couldn’t figure out what exactly it was. A faint sweetness. Not that Eren smelled bad to him, he loved his scent and there was this hint of chocolate that he had. He wanted to inhale his scent, to smell it as the first thing in the morning. But he liked Jean’s scent more.

He closed his eyes. He wondered if the three of them would fit into the shower together. He knew that they wouldn’t but he wished they would. He thought about Jean kissing his neck while he was pressed against his back and his hands sliding up his wet thighs and squeezing his butt. About Eren kissing his lips passionately. And he couldn’t decide whether he’d place his hands on Eren’s lower back or on top of Jean’s. He’d just moan in between the two of them, he’d watch them kiss each other. He was so close to them in his head, so close. Their scent would be mixed together with the scent of hot water and shampoo. So he stepped out of the shower, his head dizzy from the steam of the shower and the steam of his imagination.

He dried himself up, rubbed the towel through his hair and pushed the wet strands of golden blond hair out of his face. He should put on a shirt, he probably should put on pants, but he decided that he wouldn’t, that he’d tease his boyfriends. He smirked at the reflection in the mirror that he still didn’t really accept as himself, even though it looked better than when he first saw it. Only with a towel around his waist, he stepped out of the bathroom and into Eren’s room. He had the bigger bed, no one knew why he had this queen sized bed in his room, it took most of the space. _“Well, shit. That’s what I’d call a tease”_ , he heard Eren think, he himself only in shirt and boxers and with his mouth wide open. “I actually wanted to take a shower after you got out but...”, he muttered, got up from his desk chair and pulled Armin closer to himself. He kissed him, his hands in Armin’s hair and around his neck. It didn’t take long until he pulled Eren onto the bed behind him, it just took him a gentle tug at Eren’s shirt and then they were lying. He pulled off Eren’s shirt, he had already forgotten that he used to have a towel around his waist. The thoughts he heard were a mess of lust, they were incoherent and fuzzy and Eren’s voice was hushed, just those hoarse moans that he let out into Armin’s mouth when he found a sensitive spot on Eren’s lower back and when he playfully sucked on Eren’s lower lip. It was as good as in his fantasy even though it was still just the two of them.

“Am I invited as well?”, he heard from behind them, he wasn’t even sure if Jean had said it aloud or if it was just his mind talking. He separated his lips from Eren and they both looked up to see Jean leaning in the doorframe, he looked like he enjoyed the view, a pleased smirk on his lips. Eren smirked back at Jean and the other didn’t need any further invitation, he stripped out of his jeans and now the two of them were watching him, Armin would have liked it more if the other had pulled of a show. He wanted to watch him undress, he wanted to watch him come undone. His jeans were gone quick, so were his shirt. _“Should I get completely naked?”_ , he thought with his hand at the hem of his briefs. He was hesitant, suddenly insecure but then stripped out of his briefs as well. Jean crawled onto the bed, he placed his hand on Eren’s back, kissed his neck and then Armin’s mouth. _“Never thought this would actually happen”_ , Armin heard inside of his head. He wasn’t sure if it were Eren’s or Jean's and he didn’t really care anymore. He just wanted to kiss them until he wouldn’t be able to differentiate his own thoughts from theirs, until he was drunk from them. He was already tipsy from lust, and he didn’t want to let his lips leave their bodies. His hands on their skin was like the best liquor, lulling him with sweet taste and slowly coating his thoughts with what felt like cotton candy. He pulled Jean in closer, nibbled at the skin of his neck. The skin underneath his hands was soft and warm and he felt the other tremble under his touch. He could feel Eren pressing himself close onto Armin’s back, placing kisses onto his shoulders, gently biting him there.  
“You’re still wearing your boxers”, Armin whispered to Eren.

●

You don’t know where you are. You have never seen this place before. Everything is white, the walls, the bed the chair in the corner. You should be in your hospital bed but this feels more like a prison cell. You know it’s not the hospital room but you don’t know where you are. You get up, you try to open the door but it’s locked, you don’t stop pulling on the doorknob. You pull, you pull, you pull. It doesn’t move. You bang your fist against the door, it is a dull sound that echoes in that room. But nothing happens, nothing stirs behind that door and you realize that you are trapped. You touch your head, that spot where you used to have this stinging pain but there is nothing. No pain.

You are confused, you don’t understand. You start to feel fear, you feel nauseous. You walk around in that room, try to find the hidden camera. But there is just a bed, a chair and a toilet, everything is white. Is this a prison cell? You’re innocent, you haven’t done anything. You move the chair below the window, climb up and try to open it but it’s locked. You hammer against the window, again and again but nothing happens. You cry for help but no one comes. You sit down on that bed again, you realize that you don’t wear the hospital’s night shirt anymore, even though the one you are wearing looks similar. But this one is all white as well, you lift your bare feet onto the bed and wonder if you are dreaming.

You are not dreaming, you have slept and you have woken up again but you are still here but you don’t know why you are here. You try to breathe but it feels like the room is running out of oxygen, the walls are moving closer. The room will suffocate you. You feel it deep inside. You don’t know what will happen. You want to run away but there is no where you could run to. Trapped. Like a lab rat, you think. You have to throw up, you vomit until the only thing that comes out is clear liquid. Then you collapse next to the toilet, you need the wall behind you or else you wouldn’t be able to sit. You can’t control the tears.

Nothing happens, you wonder if you want to know what is going to happen.

Then you hear a sound, maybe footsteps. And then a shrill beeping noise that comes from the door. There is a single man that walks into the room, he has short dark hair and wears a mask in front of his mouth. Is he a doctor? He smirks as he sees you and tells you to sit down onto the bed. He tells you to cooperate with him, that they will make some tests with you. He tells you that the therapy was successful and they still need some further information, that they need to observe you for a short time. And you know that he’s lying, you know that you won’t get out. You know that the whole thing had been a lie in the first place, there was probably no therapy at all. Why did you believe them? You tell him that you want to get out, that you want to go home now and he laughs. He tells you that you can go home once they are done with their tests but you know he is lying. You ask him what kind of tests he wants to do and he says various tests, he tells you that they’ll need some of your blood, that they will have to make EEG scans of your brain. That they will have to give you some more medication. You know he is lying. You have already understood that this is going to be something entirely else. You will be their human lab rat, you think. You don’t want to go through that hell.

That’s why you try to escape, to slip past that man when he leaves. But he just grips your arm firmly, you feel something like a needle sting into your side, you turn around and see another man in white. He nods at the man who had been in your room and they bring you back, they throw you back into the room and you know for sure that you have ended up in hell. You have found it, your own personal hell on earth. It is a white room. You wonder what that needle had been, what everything here is about.

And then your lids get heavy. You black out.

●

Jean came home to the sound of Eren’s voice. He heard him yelling even through the closed door of his room. Armin sat on the couch, biting his lips and sending anxious glances into the direction of Eren’s room.  
“What’s going on?”, Jean asked, took off his jacket and put his bag on the ground. The warmth of their home felt so good but it was weird to hear Eren yelling on top of his lungs, his voice as angry as he had never heard it before. It threw him off, he stopped in midst of his movement, forgetting what he had been about to do, he twitched as he heard him curse violently.  
“He’s talking on the phone. I didn’t really get who it was, but he’s yelling at them since about half an hour now”, Armin said and pointed at the spot on the couch next to him. Jean sat down, Armin immediately nestled his head on his chest.

“I told you, I’m not coming. Why the fuck should I be coming? I don’t care if Mikasa will be there as well!”, they heard him scream.

“I wonder what’s going on”, Jean said and placed a kiss on top of Armin’s head.  
“I heard something about a wedding, but that’s everything I understood.”  
“Didn’t you hear any of his thoughts or something?”, Jean asked.  
“Thoughts are like normal sound to me, Jean. So through the closed door, I can’t hear them.” Jean sighed. He was a bit worried. Something like that hadn’t happened before. He knew that Eren liked to lose his cool but not like that. He knew that Eren could get loud in an argument and that he had arguments quite frequently, but usually, he wasn’t as loud and angry as this time. Something was definitely wrong. And he was worried a lot that he had no idea what it was.

“Yeah, well shove that bitch up your ass, I don’t care. It’s not like you ever cared for what I’m doing. No you don’t give a single fuck! Don’t think that your bloody money will be enough for me to be ok with how you are! Bla bla bla, the only thing that matters to you is you and your fucking work!”

“He’s quite nice right now”, Armin said and clung to his shirt. Jean wondered how the air was inside of Eren’s room. It was probably burning, he wondered how much of the room and Eren would be left when he was done. They heard a loud bang, like something had been thrown onto the ground. He realized that Armin was tense in his arms, Jean himself was scared and he had known gotten used to his lighter tantrums. But Armin had never witnessed Eren in an angry state, he just knew his teasing and cheeky self, he just knew the protective student who cared for him since the moment he had found him. So he must have been mortified.

“Do you even hear yourself talking? I don’t care if people will talk if I don’t come! No way that I’m moving my ass to Texas into that fucking church and pretend that we are all a happy family! You know why? Because we fucking aren’t! We aren’t even a family in the first place! You give a shit for what we’re doing. You just care when it looks good, you dirty bastard.”

“Sounds like a family argument”, Armin said into his shirt. He had buried his face in his chest, his legs draped over Jean’s. “Does he have problems with them?”  
Jean wanted to calm the blond down. He kissed the top of his head again and again, he gently stroke his shin and crawled his shoulder. “I don’t know, he doesn’t really talk about his family. I know his adoptive sister though. They are really close, and she kind of acts like his mom all the time. But he recently told me that his mother died when he was younger, so”  
“What’s with his dad?”  
“I just know that his dad is a doctor, that’s everything he told me about him.”  
“Do you think he’s talking with his dad?”, Armin asked quietly. Jean wasn’t sure if he was afraid that Eren would hear him or if he was just too afraid in general.

“I don’t love you! I don’t even care for you! How am I supposed to, huh? You were never there, my entire life, my only family was Mikasa! Don’t pretend you care for me you dirty piece of shit. I know you don’t! You’re no father, you’re a fata morgana.”

And then they heard Eren scream, he sounded lie he was about to explode. They heard loud noises, like Eren was going on a rampage in his room. The sound of shattering glass. Then he screamed again.  
“What are we supposed to do now?”, Armin asked him and looked up.  
“I have no idea. We should wait a bit. I don’t think that he wants to see anyone right now.”

●

At first, he had thought he was just imagining it. Then he had told himself he was just being paranoid. But Eren couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was someone persecuting him, walking behind him. He couldn’t see anyone, it was just a normal day on a normal street filled with normal passer-bys. But since the moment he had left the house, he felt the stinging of a pair of eyes in his neck. He turned around once again to look at what’s behind him, but he just stared at a few scattered groups of people. No one suspicious. No one with a trench coat or a hat. No one with dark shades or a newspaper in front of their face. As his heartbeat sped up, he told himself once again that there was no one behind him. And even if, he was no criminal, he wasn’t wanted and he didn’t have a secret double life that someone could want to uncover. For a second, he considered the thought that his dad could have hired a private detective to collect material to blackmail him, but he didn’t think that his dad was that shitty. He did think his dad was an awful person, but this would be even too much for him. So there couldn’t be anyone behind him, he told himself again.

But the feeling didn’t go away. It was still there when he entered the bookshop on his way to college, even inside while he browsed it, looking for a book that he could give to Armin. He didn’t want to give him just anything, he wanted to find something that kept his boyfriend busy but also something that he would enjoy reading. The two books that they had bought for Armin at the supermarket had been some third class novels, and Armin had spent an entire evening complaining about flat characters, plot holes and inconsistencies. If he wouldn’t have known already, he would have realized then how smart Armin was. And he had to relearn every kind of knowledge from scratch again since he had no memories left. So what must he have been like before he had lost his memory?

Eren grabbed a medical textbook about neurology and the physiology of the human brain, he knew that Armin was interested in that field but put it back as he looked at the price. He got quite a bit of money by his dad, he liked to call it his bribe, but the prize of the book was astronomical. He wanted to spoil Jean and Armin with his money, he wanted to spend just the necessities on himself and the rest on his boyfriends.

He heard a weird croaking noise one aisle behind him and looked up. But there was nothing unusual, just ordinary customers. And no one of them seemed like he had seen them earlier already. He sighed and continued searching. There was no reason to feel persecuted, he knew it, but he felt like texting Jean nonetheless. He felt like he should tell him that he was well, like he should give him an update on what he was doing. He knew that Jean and Armin were worried. They had heard him argue with his dad the other day and he remembered seeing their faces when he had finally come out of his room. They had looked at him with shock and concern, but they hadn’t dared to ask what had been going on. Eren was glad that they hadn’t. Thinking about it still made him boil with rage.

When he left the bookshop with a copy of a cheaper textbook about neurology and the first three Harry Potter books in the paper bag that the nice employee had packed them up in with a “have a good day”, he didn’t move from the front of the shop for a few minutes, waiting if someone would come out of the shop right after him. But no one came. With a relieved sigh, he walked in the direction of the supermarket and cursed himself that he hadn’t gone to the supermarket first and to the book store afterwards. Yet, a few streets later, he felt it again. The gaze of someone burning on him. He turned around and turned around but no one to be seen. The text he got back from Jean said he should pick up some milk for him since he had drunk all of Jean’s again. And if they looked like the people that had looked for Armin the other day.

Armin. He hadn’t thought about that, maybe he had tried to ignore it, but he realized that if someone really was following him, that someone knew that Armin lived with him. They just needed to find out where he would go to. But then again, why would they follow him from his doorstep? But he hoped that they were not the same people that showed around those flyers. He hoped that they didn’t already knew that Armin was with them. He wanted Armin to be safe with them. But how should he make sure? Eren picked up the milk for Jean as well and walked back home. He didn’t know if someone was actually after him, but the nagging feeling left him uneasy.

●

They were listening to the music from Jean’s iPod, the sound of some soft electro pop beats filled their apartment and as Eren kept giving Jean a annoyed glare because he didn’t approve with his choice of music repeatedly, Armin smiled because it really felt like their apartment now. Somewhen, he had stopped feeling like an intruder, like a stranger. He felt at home. And he hoped that things wouldn’t change any time soon.

“I don’t mind the music”, he said.  
“C’mon that’s some weird synthesizer shit. Who listens to that stuff anymore? It’s 2014, you know”, Eren said teasingly. _“Please give Armin a better taste than Jean’s”_  
“Well, no one wants to listen to your pop punk shit either. I mean, it's 2014, am I right Armin?”, Jean said and lounged himself onto the couch next to Armin, draping his arm around the other’s shoulder.  
“I don’t mind Eren’s music either”, he answered. He found it interesting that they had so different tastes, he actually loved both of their tastes and he didn’t care if the music came from Jean’s or Eren’s iPod. He just liked the sound of music, because it made rooms feel less empty. Not that their apartment ever felt empty.

Eren got up from the floor where he had been sitting the past half hour in front of his laptop and a notebook. Armin had offered him to help him with his assignment, but Eren had refused. He walked into the kitchen, got a bottle of Fanta and gulped down the orange liquid while he kept gazing at him and Jean on the couch. _“God, why are they so cute”_ , he thought.  
“We could go out today, maybe to the movies or something. Like a date”, he said as he put the bottle onto the coffee table.  
“We have never been on a date, now that you mention it”, Jean answered and kissed Armin’s hair, right above his ear. “We really should though. What do you think, honey?”

Jean loved it to call his boyfriends pet names, Armin had figured that right at the beginning. And since the three of them were a thing, he had rarely called him by the name that he had chosen. It was always honey, sweetie, my love or things like that. He called Eren babe most of the time when he didn't chose to call him names. Armin was not against that, he liked it actually. But he wasn’t really happy with their proposition, leaving the apartment and going out on a date. He would love to go on a date with them, he wanted to hold their hands during a movie, he wanted to have a tiny argument over who would get to sit in the middle, he wanted to look at the stars with them. But he was scared of it. It was dangerous. Maybe those people were waiting for him to leave the house, maybe they would take him with them once he moved outside of the safety of their apartment. He knew that someone had followed Eren around. And he knew that something similar had happened to Jean. Eren didn’t knew though, he had heard him thinking that he shouldn’t tell Eren, that he should just ignore it.  
“Do you think it’s safe to go out? I mean what if they find me”, he said with a worried look. _“Armin is probably right, he shouldn’t be seen outside. But we can’t tell him that. Damn, I don’t want to worry him”_ , he heard Jean think. _“Just keep it cool”_ , said Eren’s voice in his head.  
“If you’re not comfortable with that, it’s fine”, Eren said and squeezed himself onto the couch, right between his two boyfriends. He ran his hands through their hair. Armin knew that he was disappointed a bit.  
“But I’d really like to go on a date though”, Armin said and nestled his head into Eren’s neck. He knew that they both forced themselves not to think about how things would progress. He didn’t knew himself. He couldn’t hide in here forever. But maybe one day, those people would think he’d be dead or whatever and leave him alone, maybe he had regained his memory by then and the three of them would just live happily ever after, he’d get a job and pay them back for the time he lived on their expenses. And they’d go on countless dates together.  
“Then we’ll make this night a date, even though we can’t go out with you”, Jean said and leaned a bit forward so he could see his smile and his wink.

“I have an idea”, Eren said. The shimmer in his eyes looked dangerous, and if Armin wouldn’t already know what he was about to propose, he would have been worried. So Eren got up, pulled them from the couch by their hands and disappeared inside of his room. He came back with a jacket in his hand and threw it at Armin. “Grab your jacket, Jean”, he said while he put on a jacked himself. A jacket that was obviously too thin for that time of the year and that time if the day. “Eren, we just talked about how it’s not safe for Armin to go out and now you want to do just that?”, the look that Jean gave him made Armin shiver a bit because it was too reproachful for what Eren had in mind but of course Jean couldn’t know what his boyfriend was planning so what was he supposed to think? Eren just walked up to him, kissed him with a smirk and said “We’re not really going out. We’ll just go outside for a bit.”

And so Eren led them upstairs until they reached a door that said “keep out”. Without hesitation, he put a key inside and opened it, holding the door open for the other two and when Jean gave him a suspicious look and asked where he got that key, Eren just shrugged and said that he had found it. He gave Jean another reassuring kiss and pointed at another set of stairs that led upwards again. And after another two or three floors, the reached a white steel door that Eren pushed open with the entire weight of his body. “Voilà”, he said as they caught sight of the roof of their apartment building.

To his surprise, Jean was the first to lay down on the roof. He supported himself on his elbows and gestured the other two to come down as well. “Didn’t know you could go up here”, he said and gazed into the night sky with a smile.  
“Well, technically, you can’t”, Eren said and lay down next to him, lacing his fingers with Jean’s.

Armin kept standing, staring in awe at the plethora of bright stars. It was the first time to see the stars like this. Or at least the only time he could remember. He probably had seen the stars plenty of times but all of the memories of those nights were gone. Had he been speechless from awe as well? Had he kissed someone under the night skies? Had he wished upon a star? He didn’t know. But seeing the stars for the first time, he didn’t want to blink because he didn’t want to miss even the smallest fraction of a second of that view.

“What are you waiting for?”, Jean asked him and stretched his hand out, trying to get a hold of the jacket that Armin wore, even though he was out of reach for Jean while he lay on the ground. Armin blinked once, breathed in the clear night air and got onto the ground next to Jean. The same second, he felt Jean’s arm around him, he felt him drawing circles with his index finger on his shoulder. Jean shifted a bit to put his other arm around Eren. What Armin felt that second was just warmth, even though the cold air stung his face and his bare hands. He let his hand wander over Jean’s chest, he caressed it through the layers of clothing, sometimes brushing over Eren’s that just rested on Jean’s ribcage.

“That’s a great date night”, Armin said. And he didn’t bother listening to the thoughts he heard, they were just some fuzzy things, circling around the three of them and the infinity of stars above them.

●

Something felt off. The second he and Jean entered the apartment complex, they looked at each other, knowing that something didn’t feel right. And as they stood in front of their door, they figured it was too quiet behind of the door. Armin wasn’t the person to read in silence, he wasn’t a person for silence in general. Eren bit his lip, he was afraid. There were ten million scenarios running through his head. He told himself that everything would be fine once they opened the door, Armin was probably just napping. Jean searched for his hand, his palm felt sweaty, he didn’t need to look at him to know that he was scared as well. They will find everything just as usual once they open the door, he repeatedly told himself, holding onto Jean’s hand tightly. But when he wanted to put his keys into the keyhole, he found the door already unlocked.

He found the apartment empty. The blankets on the couch scattered. The last Harry Potter book was on the ground, too far from the table to have been just dropped carelessly. There was a puddle on the ground, a puddle of coffee. And a broken cup.  
“Is this blood?”, Jean asked barely audible, his voice shaking. He was pale white as he pointed on the red stains on the ground not too far from the door.  
“Armin?”, Eren yelled. But the only response was silence. He ran to the bathroom, ripped open the door. He did the same with his and Jean’s room. Nothing. “Shit”, he said. He didn’t know what to do. He felt tears stinging behind his eyes, rage boiling up in his stomach. He had promised Armin that they’d protect him.  
“They found him”, Jean muttered. Without another word, he sank onto the couch were Armin should be sitting too, staring blankly at the doorframe that led into the kitchen.

Eren wondered if it was his fault, because he brought them up onto the roof, because they had been following him, maybe he had been too careless. He wanted to punch something, to yell, to throw something at the wall. He was mad at himself, he was mad at them. He balled his fists, tears streamed out of his eyes and he screamed in anger, in frustration. He was helpless.

He needed air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hoped you liked this chapter, it got a bit fragmenty while writing :o  
> I'm not making a plan for the next update because well, chapter 5 (4) is the longest chapter in my head and I need to explore Jean bit more still. So we'll see what the next chapter brings, huh.


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